One of Ladysmith’s most well-known daughters, Pamela Anderson, has recently been in the news not for her acting, modelling or her activism, but for owing property taxes in her hometown.
A tax certificate from the Town of Ladysmith shows that, as of Jan. 14, the balance due for Anderson’s Chemainus Road property is just over $31,000.
Property taxes in Ladysmith were due July 2, and Erin Anderson, the town’s director of financial services (no relation), says about 92 per cent of taxes were paid at the due date.
Property owners who do not pay by July 2 are assessed a penalty, and it sits like that until the end of the year, explained Anderson.
Starting Jan. 1, those properties began to accumulate interest, and starting in September 2014, they will go up for tax sale if it gets that far, she noted.
“Rarely are there properties that actually go for tax sale,” she said.
Asked how big of an impact $31,000 of unpaid taxes would have on the municipality, Anderson replied that property taxes are the town’s biggest source of revenue, “but our tax levy is $6.6 million.”
Pamela Anderson brought a proposal for a waterfront development on her property at the northern end of Chemainus Road to council in 2008, but the development has not taken place.
She teamed up with former NHL player Geoff Courtnall on the project, which proposed a six-building residential complex called Arcadia at Oyster Bay.
Town council approved two key permits for the project August 2008, but by December of that year, the town was still waiting for the developer to sign off on a covenant before moving ahead.