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LAUTENS: Grenby penny-pinched his way into our hearts

Mike Grenby was the most agreeable, politely self-promoting journalist of my acquaintance. Grenby, who died recently in Australia where he’d lived for years, outshone Jack Benny, the gold standard for honing a public profile as a cheapskate.
meercat mike

Mike Grenby was the most agreeable, politely self-promoting journalist of my acquaintance.

Grenby, who died recently in Australia where he’d lived for years, outshone Jack Benny, the gold standard for honing a public profile as a cheapskate. You may not know of Benny, but take my word.

Grenby began his splendid career (eventually a three-degrees university professor and syndicated finance columnist) as a role model for aspiring misers in the Vancouver Sun. On his commutes, his under-powered gas-squeezing motorbike glaciated Lions Gate Bridge traffic, sign on back advertising his name and an apology. He patented the two-fork restaurant meal of salad, entrée and dessert – divided with wife Mandy.

His advice to track down slightly aging produce at reduced prices became legendary – and provoked a priceless parody. Dundarave resident Mac Reynolds, the Sun’s wittiest writer and a character in his own right with beret and cigar, wrote a cripplingly funny send-up of Grenby purchasing a diseased kumquat. The whole town roared.

You couldn’t offend Grenby. It was all grist for his mill – which, he’d well know, is a tenth of a cent.

• • •

 

It’s easy to say you can’t stop progress and all that cant. I stopped by the bottom of West Van’s 31st Street a few weeks ago. And again last week. What the Five Creeks stormwater drainage project is doing to the idyllic beauty of the area that long-time resident Roger Finnie and others fought in court to protect is gut-wrenching.

The centerpiece for DWV’s official narrative is an insistent denial that Five Creeks isn’t for the benefit of British Pacific Properties but to protect existing homes below BPP’s development. So how did town hall con BPP into ponying up a dime, let alone all costs above West Van’s $6.25 million cap, for a problem not of its making?

• • •

 

Last time at bat, I cited the tool of the province’s deferred municipal property tax program, which allows “seniors” (starting at the low threshold of 55) and certain eligible younger property owners to defer paying taxes on their homes.

I used a fictitious name, the Upwith-Joneses, for a real-life, high-income professional West Vancouver couple using it – or, some critics would claim, abusing it. It’s a well-meant program for people aged 55 or over, land-rich but with little income. 

How it works: The provincial government pays the taxes, essentially lending the deferred amount at low (and simple) interest – since March 31, an amazing 1.95 per cent. Next thing to free money. But, as they’d say in the marketplace ads, ONLY UNTIL SEPT. 30!

The homeowners pay back the loan at any time or when the property is sold, or more often the loan is deducted from the estate when they die.

Sound good? Agent Y86Ds2v, a retiree I know to be of unblemished character, large brain, and a “modest, and for the moment absurdly over-valued, abode,” uses deferral guiltlessly. He advises: “People, regardless of their income or wealth, are wise to avail themselves of the property tax deferral program.” He’s done so for years.

The deferral helped pay for recent travels in northern Europe. Sounds more electrifying than watching one’s spouse do the crossword puzzle and Sudoku, which is the giddy morning ritual in a fun household I won’t name.

But in that same household there’s a culture of hating debt. Quite widespread, considering we’re hammered by those radio commercials (which I always switch off) bellowing “Approved!” or, seductively, “Could you use $30,000 …?”

Whatever the reason, Nina Leemhuis, DWV chief administrative officer, provided these figures: In West Van “there are 16,485 residential properties, of which 944 are land-only assessments.” And as of a couple of weeks ago, “the number of active deferment agreements was 2,341.”

Statistics Canada for 2016 reported that 15,040 West Vancouver residents were over the eligible threshold of 55. Clearly many couples jointly own their property, and many others own none. But as for the rest, are they debt-resistant or sharply aware that decades of deferral add up to big erosion of their estate’s value? (A cynic defined the reverse mortgage, a cousin of the deferral tool: “It’s custom-made for people who hate their children.”)

Maybe they just haven’t looked up from morning tea and their crossword puzzle.

• • •

 

The political talk of the town has become uglier.

In a recent angry on-line argument one of the participants closed his case: “Unfortunately, there appears to be no real hope for needed corrections in the future and I don’t see a badly needed revolution soon.” My italics.

Cool it.

As the Russian, Chinese, Cuban and other communist revolutions amply proved, revolutionaries are the ultimate big-promising do-gooders who in power become the do-worsers.

  • • •

  

It’s surprising that the generally unruffled Japanese are angry about U.S. star and businesswoman Kim Kardashian using the brand name Kimono – apparently seen as cultural expropriation – for her line of women’s underwear.

Can we expect that someday the People’s Republic of China will arrest Western spies for stealing the secret recipe for chicken chow mein?

 

 rtlautens@gmail.com

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