Chatham-Kent's farming community says this year's municipal budget is music to its ears.
The budget passed last week with a slight 1.96% property tax hike to cover the cost of infrastructure spending.
Louis Roesch is on the board of the Kent Federation of Agriculture (KFA), and says that'll go towards getting a number of rural bridges off the divestment list.
"The more bridges that are closed in the rural sectors means we have to run on the main roads with our equipment," says Roesch. "It ties up traffic, it's an increased hazard on the road, and we don't want to do that."
Roesch says KFA members are also pleased council is holding the line on the farmland mill rate, especially in light of increased MPAC farm assessments for 2017. Though that means farmers were going to pay more in taxes regardless of a property tax increase, Roesch says they don't mind as long as the money's being spent in the right areas.
"We won't argue the fact that our taxes are going up, provided that the [municipality] please puts that into the bridges and the roads," he says. "It's a give-and-take situation that I think everybody's winning."