The following news story asserts, among other things, that Langford has secured an agreement from the TD Bank to refinance our existing $11.4 million in debt.  It interestingly doesn’t have much to say about the proposal to borrow $9.75 more, which is what spurred Langford to go to the bank in the first place.

I would like to know if the terms are the same between our existing MFA debt and the proposed TD debt. Are they both fixed-rates, or is one floating? Are repayment options the same? We need to know whether we’re dealing with an apples-to-apples comparison to know for sure if the, probably very slightly, lower rate we’re getting is truly a good deal for taxpayers, and none of City Hall’s press releases and comments to the media seem to address that.

Another thing asserted in this article is that Langford has “the best tax record of any municipality in the region”. What does he define as the “region”? The West Shore? All of Greater Victoria? From the numbers I’m reading neither seems true, so I can’t come up with a region where our tax record is the best. Our tax record is better than the City of Victoria, but it’s not better than everyone in the Capital Region, and not even better than everyone on the West Shore.

Finally, Young’s constant attacks on the MFA (constant in the sense that he now seems to attack them every time the subject comes up) are of questionable appropriateness. When Colwood councillors recently rejected the idea of looking into amalgamation with Langford, perhaps they didn’t (or correctly sensed that Colwood voters didn’t) want to hitch their wagon to a municipality known for attacking other government bodies, including some of it’s West Shore neighbours (witness Young’s recent attacks on Metchosin’s John Ranns as another example).

- Steven Hurdle -

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Langford pulls plug on Finance Authority, shifts $11.4-million debt to chartered bank

Bill Cleverley, Times Colonist Read the rest of this entry »