Rants, raves and things that just don’t make sense to a country boy.

No good deed goes unpunished

As the last scrap of garbage is stuffed in a bag, and the final sign comes down, Neepawa should take its collective hat off to the 2010 Homecoming Committee.
Only a few short weeks ago, there was talk of doom and gloom. Lack of volunteers and whispers of a skyrocketing deficit.
As we noted over the weekend, even Mother Nature got behind the committee who delivered an exceptional few days of entertainment... and from all reports, very close to budget.
Were there hitches, were there complaints?
Absolutely.
But what endeavor, especially a community one, doesn’t have the odd hiccup.
Given the scale of the event, the Homecoming Committee was spot on. Only the usual suspects grumbled about some damn thing or another.
I tip my tuque to the men and women of the committee and the volunteers who came out to make Homecoming an unqualified success.
For those committee members or volunteers who had to suffer the barbs of the normally malcontent, remember one thing: no good deed goes unpunished.
And you did a very good deed.

ESCHEW OBFUSCATION

Without much fanfare, the Town of Neepawa passed its 2010 budget.
Hidden in the figures through well-planned obfuscation (big word meaning to confuse or disguise intention) is a relatively large tax increase — 4.5 per cent.
As reported in the April 28 The Neepawa Press, large commercial and low residential homeowners could be facing double-digit tax increases.
The average taxpayer — and councillor as it happens — would be extremely hard pressed to make sense out of both the process and the budget itself.
To simplify to the extreme, the only real thing Neepawa homeowners need to know is that council is raising taxes to the tune of $180,000.
And of course, depending on how much your property is worth will dictate how much of that extra $180,000 will be your share.
There is no question that Neepawa needs to improve its water supply and delivery. And yes, that is going to cost money.
But what irks most taxpayers is the convoluted and yes, obfuscated, manner in which budgets are presented. The Town of Neepawa will be spending nearly $4.2 million in the next fiscal year. And despite best efforts by some at the council table and the media to translate accountant babble into plain language, it is obvious the average taxpayer remains in the dark until the tax bill hits the mailbox.
It’s when they open that envelope, not during the process, do they begin to understand.
One thing is for sure, when they sit down to write the cheque to pay for their taxes, the words they will be uttering will not be an obfuscation.
Those words will be one syllable and generally, only four letters long.