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This week, Express reporter Erin Fawcett asked Councillor Larry Pimm questions regarding his Notice of Motion to give low income seniors in Red Deer a tax break.

This week, Express reporter Erin Fawcett asked Councillor Larry Pimm questions regarding his Notice of Motion to give low income seniors in Red Deer a tax break.

"In 2007 I did some research on Calgary and Edmonton programs where they were assisting low income seniors on their taxes," said Pimm. "At that time the administration on these programs was quite hefty and so I left it. Then I recently read that in Grande Prairie they had a program where they give $100 support to low income seniors in the City who own their own property. It's not a very broad program, it's a very focused program, but I wanted to see if we could do something like that here."

He added the program would have offered some help to a few people who have entered retirement without adequate money to live comfortably on.

"Yes, there are single mom's out there who are patching together three jobs to make ends meat, but the province has the number of low income seniors that would qualify for this in Red Deer and so I thought it would be relatively easy to access that information and it wouldn't cost us anything as we wouldn't have to do our own study," said Pimm.

"These are some of the people that may need some assistance and they are easily identifiable without a lot of administration costs or embarrassing needs assessments," said Pimm. "The province already has the numbers for us."

He added if council had approved the tax break, $100 wouldn't go very far.

"One hundred dollars wouldn't determine if a senior kept their home or not, but it's a little bit of help," said Pimm.

"For the moment this goes nowhere," said Pimm. "Although the discussion during council on this was very interesting. I'm a little bit disappointed that it didn't go anywhere, but not a whole bunch."

He added if this issue is important to others, maybe they will use it as part of their campaign for City council this upcoming election.

"I'm going to let it go for now," said Pimm. "There's no need to beat a drum with a fast rhythm."

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