Online forum lets Wellesley residents react to large tax increase

Leah Gerber

Observer Staff

MATT AUSTIN THINKS

A 14 per cent tax increase for Wellesley Township residents is too high. In that, he’s not alone. He recently started paying more attention to local politics when he learned regional council members voted to give themselves benefits for life, though the new council later revoked that decision.

“So learning about that, in the Region of Waterloo, that council, how they were voting for themselves for benefits with outgoing members of that council, to me that seemed absolutely absurd, and was in complete conflict with the concept of good governance.”

“I don’t understand how we can get to that point where this is seen as acceptable by politicians,” he said. “So, it was very weird that this kind of behavior is taking place, and then that it was taking place inside of our own community. So that really brought my attention to the community politics taking place in Wellesley Township.” him, was a problem.

“Then this culminated in the 14 per cent tax [increase], which then really caught my attention. At that point, [I realized] I need to stop looking elsewhere. I need to focus here at home because there’s problems here and things in Wellesley Township that are deserving of my full attention.” but they didn’t know what to do. Austin started a Facebook group called ‘St. Clements Organized.’

I could do was create a group for the concerned citizens of Wellesley to come together for a place to discuss, to talk about government, to talk about council.”

When he learned township council voted to increase taxes by a total of about 14 per cent when combined with the already approved temporary increase to pay for the recreation centre debenture and staffing, that, to → TAX INCREASE 4

He says he saw other people upset about the tax increase posting online,

“I thought, well, the best thing you can do is simply to organize and to actually start putting everyone together in one place who wants to be active in the community, who wants to have a say, who believes in good governance and who believes in having an effective, responsible and transparent government. So the least

Last week, on the day of the township council meeting, Austin made an informal event to invite people to gather where Wellesley council would be meeting. He called it a “no expectation, hasty protest.” He says about a