I am all in favour of the Sault Ratepayers Association being involved in the city election that is to be held on Oct. 22.

After all, anything that adds focus to the election is fine with me.

However, I am talking about things that are based in reality.

I don’t think at least one of the proposals the ratepayers are going to push for that was contained in their press release of July 27 fits into that category.

The association wants to see taxes in all categories, industrial, commercial and residential, reduced.

This, of course, leads to the question, who is going to pick up the slack?

Because no matter how you slice it, taxes are not going to go down. Hold the line? Maybe. Go down? Give your head a shake.

Now I know some of you are going to say that there is a hole in my argument, considering the city seems to have enough in the bank to blow $3 million upgrading Bay Street, turning it from four lanes into two, adding multi-use paths and improving the aesthetics while taking away bus service, which could be retained if the street were cut to three lanes rather than two.

And the city is doing this while probably ending up getting only 60% or so of the back-tax money it is owed by Essar Steel Algoma.

So the city would seem to be doing all right.

But I still think it would be disingenuous for candidates supported by the ratepayers to base their campaigns on reducing taxes.

I am not even in favour of holding the line. Even that can get us in trouble. Years ago our roads took a beating when the council of the day instituted a series of zero tax increases. I don’t think we have caught up to this day.

The association also is calling for a by-law that would see the appointment of an integrity commissioner, auditor general, lobby registry / registrar and municipal ombudsman.

Yeah, just what we need, more bureaucrats.

I would have been more impressed if the association had asked why it takes two workers to paint a fire hydrant or so many to make small repairs to a street, curb or sidewalk or a contractor six months to dig up a street, complete the work below, fill it in and pave it.