Pierrefonds cheers, Dollard jeers

BY RAFFY BOUDJIKANIAN

raffy.boudjikanian@transcontinental.ca

Though the City of Montreal has trumpeted its latest budget as free of tax increases for citizens, Dollard des Ormeaux Mayor Ed Janiszewski is having none of it.

"It's a very disappointing tax increase" Janiszewski told The Chronicle. He blasted both the Tremblay administration and the Charest provincial government for failing to fix the inequalities in the Montreal agglomeration council that administers regional services and issues its own tax bills to homeowners in de-merged municipalities.

According to him, the average taxpayer in Dollard will see a combined property tax increase of about five per cent, depending on his home's valuation. Last year, Janiszewski said that the average house in Dollard is valued at about $280 000, with $3,100 in property taxes.

Janiszewski said that half of Montreal Island's 15 reconstituted municipalities, those without industrial parks, will receive the heaviest tax increases.

Pierrefonds/Roxboro, one of two Montreal boroughs in the West Island, will be doing a lot better.

"Forty-six per cent of my residents will get less taxed on their properties," said borough mayor Monique Worth.

In Pierrefonds/Roxboro, the average home is valued at $198,386 in 2008, and will have a tax increase of one per cent.

"I think I'm pretty happy for my borough," Worth said.

The Montreal budget outlines expenses that carry Island-wide, such as $280 million for the reparations of local and arterial roads next year. The latter include boulevards that fall outside the boundaries of Montreal and its boroughs, such as Sources or St. John's boulevards. However, Janiszewski said that did not impress him either. "We told them we wanted control of the arterial roads back, but they didn't listen," he said. He pointed to how the agglomeration council chose to repair Salaberry in Dollard last year, even though the city had told them the cost was too expensive.

A bill in the Quebec National Assembly is set to alter the powers of Montreal's agglomeration council, but Janiszewski slammed it, saying that he doubted the provincial government would heed to the de-merged cities' demands. "We have 200,000 voters (in the West Island area) that vote Liberal regardless," he said, adding that the Charest administration simply takes these votes for granted.

"They kept thinking that the provincial government would fix things," said Worth of her West Island suburban colleagues in reconstituted municipalities. She said she was not too surprised that Dollard is getting a tax increase. "There's a message for (Janiszewski) there," she said. "I don't know if he sees it, or if he wants to see it, but there's a message. We would have all been better off as one city."