Boroughs face cash crunch

Everybody’s worst mega-nightmare is coming true. Due to Montreal’s typical, atrocious money-management strategy, the $400-million deficit run up by the mega-city has caused the Tremblay-Zampino administration to freeze borough budgets for the next year.

So even though snow-clearing might cost more next winter, the borough will have to take the extra costs out of some other place — namely, services to citizens. It’s already started; the Pierrefonds/Roxboro borough patrol is really more of a hotline, because there are no patrols overnight on weeknights. Now, the boroughs are going to have to take money from youth sports, sponsorships, snow-clearing and who-knows-what-else because the bloated mega-city administration has erred so badly in managing tax revenue. It’s going to be of little comfort to Beaconsfield residents who were hit with huge property taxes to fund an agglomeration council that for some reason, is in charge of picking up litter on downtown streets.

It’s a mixed bag for Beaconsfielders; yes, there are tax increases, but at least you got out while you still could. The poor residents of Pierrefonds/Roxboro and Ile Bizard/Ste. Geneviève have to live with an administration more interested in lining its own pockets — an expensive bottle of wine on the mega-city tab, anyone? Maybe four? — than actually governing.