Dear Editor,A few days ago this paper told us, "City seeds farmers market, new site closer to reality with $1m from HRM". The city is forbidden to give money to for profit businesses under the Municipal Government act, sec's 65M, 65 aa and 65 AR. How then did they circumvent the law? The first story from their lips was about a new organization called The Community Facility Partnership Fund. When I called City Hall today and spoke with the Mayor's assistant he had another spin ready. He said they didn't know where the money was going is was simply an imporvement grant to the Port Authority. How dumb does he think we are? Never mind it has to be very dumb. If private business worked like this they would be taken away in handcuffs for money laundering.If the Minister responsible, The Hon. Jamie Muir, allows then to get away with this it will fast become an economic nightmare where favoured downtown businesses will be fed civic tax dollars on a regular basis. It seems that the old city of Dartmouth and the old county have become colonies for downtown Halifax. While needed and mandated services are ignored and new facilities not even mentioned for these areas there seems to be no lack of money for any and everything they want to do there. There must be a way to stop this and recoup our tax dollars. There are laws doesn't the government have to live under them like we do? I guess history and this incident tell us loud and clear no.Now you know why they need tax reform that will see taxes outside old Halifax double and in some cases triple to feed theses new plans they are putting place to hand money to old Halifax.Yours trulyBruce DeVenne
By Bruce DeVenne