- by Anne Finlay-Stewart, Editor

A beautiful day. A community celebration. And blood in my shoes.

My own fault really. I went to the Owen Sound Cultural Awards because I had nominated someone and I wanted to be there to support her. The day was so lovely and the street seemed dry so I figured I could skip the boots and walk to the Bayshore Community Centre in a solid pair of shoes. The kind that look nice at a special occasion, but aren't really built for distance. It was on the way home from one end of our city to the other that my heel started to bleed and I tried to focus on the bigger picture.

I own a car. My friend uses it to go to work in Chatsworth because there is no inter-town transportation and that's too far to walk. If it had been raining or blizzarding, or the event had been at night, I could easily have sprung for the $16.20 to take a taxi there and back. But it was a perfect day for a walk.

I thought about that as I walked the blocks where there was no sidewalk, or the slush on the sidewalk was over my shoes. Or when I jumped out of the way of the splash when cars drove through potholes. As I walked slowly up the hill and wondered whether my tights could be salvaged, I thought about my neighbours.

Where I live there are almost 200 seniors' and affordable apartments; filled to capacity with human beings, most of whom would have enjoyed the free cultural awards celebration. Most of them don't have cars, some have canes or walkers and, like all of us, all of them have to think twice about how and when they spend their money. It's 5 kilometres round trip to the nearest grocery store, and only one is on a direct bus route. There are no buses in the evening in Owen Sound, and none at all on Sundays. None to a Sauble sunset, the city's free concerts by the harbour or movies in the park. None to the movies at all.

Then there are my other neighbours. Some with too many vehicles to fit in the drive. They need a snowblower to remove what the plow leaves behind, because everyone needs to get their car out to get to work. Those neighbours rarely use a sidewalk or a taxi and never a bus. But they do use roads and pay taxes and grumble when they rise.

So here's the thing about taxes. They pay for sidewalks and snow removal and buses. And affordable housing and road repair and special celebrations. They are in many ways the great equalizer. But what are we willing to pay for, and for whom?

The city spent 2016 reviewing just that, and it turned out that years of past neglect and bets on the future, commitments, contracts and regulations made their options far narrower than they had hoped. Residential property taxes and some user fees are going up. Levels of service are not likely to decline, but neither can we expect much soon that we do not already see.

This is our reality and complaining is not going to change it any more than it could stop my foot from bleeding. The city we want is not going to come from city hall. We need the innovation and co-operation of this whole community to build the city we can really celebrate.