Published Feb. 11 2020

To the Editor

I am writing to express concern of the municipality’s traffic assessment to guide council in future decisions. It is noted in the story “Dysart budget includes 3.65% tax increase” Feb. 4 Haliburton Echo that “counts will be completed prior to the summer season.” As a cottage owner who pays a large sum of taxes for a seasonal lakefront residence I am being ignored. As per population growth in summer so goes traffic growth. This traffic count must include the summer season. Seasonal owners pay the majority of residential taxes in this municipality. To all politicians that ran in the last election road maintenance/lack thereof was the issue for us. We are having our hard surface roads reduced to gravel a reduction in level of service paired with higher taxes. If we are not receiving a reasonable level of municipal service which for us is our roads and our disproportionate contribution of taxes continues this will become a major divisive issue for this municipality.

Patrick Berne
Haliburton Lake