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Repeal of the fixed assessments “tacket’’, and
action by city council, pending decision of the legislatyre,
to cut homeowners’ taxes in half, by making Bloedels
and APL carry their ‘fair share of the tax load, is the
aim- of Clarke Tassie, aldermanic candidate in Port
Alberni, British Columbia’s fastest growing city.

“One of the most shocking tax steals in any city
in B.C.,”. is how this able and energetic champion of
tax reform describes the special dispensation given two of
the biggest and wealthiest properties in Alberni, as he
sopens his campaign: for a new deal for the homeowners
and small business people. ““Why, we property owners
of Port aie paying taxes at the rate of 60 mills, while
in a city providing all the additional services that Van-
couver does, the rate is only 56 mills,”) he told the
Pacific. Tribune in an interview this week.

“We are being grossly overcharged,” he continued,
“Because Bloedel and MacMillan have manipulated
for themselves a ‘fixed assessment” which, so long as
it exists, limits their assessment to $925,000.

“If these two. rich revenue producers were assessed
on the same basis as our homes, and other business and
industrial plants including their competitor, the Tahsis
Sawmill, they would pay at least $20 million. ~ Just

imagine Bloedel’s $12 million pulp mill, sawmill and -

shingle mill getting off for as little as $800,000. Is it

any wonder the mill rate has to be as high as 60 mills?”

“Such gross injustice against the other taxpayers
of Alberni must be removed. The policy of special

concessions to Bloedel and MacMillan must be ended,”
Tassie declared. “Make them pay as they should on
an equitable basis, and the assessment roll would climb
from a little less than $7 million to at least $28 million,
which it can readily be seen would make possible raising
the same civic tax revenue with one-quarter the present
mill rate. We homeowners are paying Bloedel’s and
Pacific Lumber’s taxes under the present unfair system,
and that’s why taxation on homes is so unduly heavy.”

“The city council must petition the legislature for
redress for the great majority of the, taxpayers who are
carrying such an unfair burden, and this is becoming
very pressing as unemployment climbs again and threat-
ens thousands with loss of homes in tax-sales as happened
during the “Hungry Thirties’,”” Tassie stated.

- . “But we don’t have to wait for the legislature, we
can cut the mill rate and shift the tax load where it
belongs even with the present powers of the city council.
When elected I am going to open the fight immediately
to increase the present assessment of improvements from
35: {6 at: least 75 percent as recommended in the Gold-
enberg report and make possible a ‘flat rate’ exemption
of $2000. Such a policy will bring substantial relief
to at least four out of every five taxpayers; it will make
it possible to cut taxation on homes by at least half

at
and at the same time provide additional revenue to civic |
services, and provide a, civic arena, the Tenth Avenue

fill and other needed projects.” ‘

J . . one
Tassie, whose candidature has the official endorse-

ment of the Citizens Committee for Repeal of the Fixed

“Assessment, is well. and favorably known,in the Alberni

District for his keen-and self-sacrificing interest in com-~

munity affairs and the labor movement. Having lived,
in Port Alberni for 21 years, Clarke is a former pro-
vincial vice-president of the United Brotherhood of
Carpenters and Joiners (AFL), with a distinguished
record overseas in World War JI, during which he was
wounded in Italy.

Son of one of the Valley’s oldest and most respect-
ed professional men, Clarke Tassie is 32 years of age,
is married and has one daughter. “With a wide range
of experience as a sawmill worker, hard-rock miner,
carpenter, and for the last year a salesman for the
Fuller Brush Company, Tassie has an intimate knowl-
edge of the problems of the people of the lumbering

center he seeks the opportunity of representing and. fight-
ing for. :
This week Tassie was joined in his determined

fight to abolish fixed assessments by Walter Harris,
former alderman and a former police commissioner in
Port Alberni. Harris announced that he would be a

candidate for city council, with the endorsation of the

citizens’ committee which hgs backed Tassie in his
months-long campaign.

He stated he was convinced that abolition of. the
fixed assessment enjoyed by Bloedel, Stewart and

“Welch. and Alberni Pacific Lumber Company was

“essential to correcting the glaring inequality in taxation

between the big corporations which draw their huge
profits from this Island lumbering center and the citizens
and homeowners whose work and industry made those
profits possible., “Our next city council can correct this
inequality,’’ he declared, “‘but only if you elect men
pledged to carry through the fight to abolish the fixed
assessment.”

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