Tax Increase

So…what should we do about this “public safety” payroll tax???

Of course everyone is “for” public safety, so perhaps this is a “no brainer”???  Not so fast…perhaps we should consider it a little deeper than that.

We need more jail space to allow our municipal court to hand out stiffer sentences, and to have the manpower available to run an expanded jail.  I’d be the first one to campaign in favor of that—but none of the money from this tax will go towards the jail.

If we try to remember back five years ago—when the first “public safety” tax was proposed—it was decided that it stood a better chance to pass with a five-year “sunset provision” so that the people could be shown that the money would be used as promised, and that if it wasn’t, then the people could rightfully refuse to renew it.  When measured by that standard, we, the people, should refuse to renew it.  The city’s administration did not live by their promises, so we should take them at their own word.  This time it does not have the five-year sunset provision.  This time we will be stuck.

Supporters of this tax, many of whom are city employees, have failed to obey the campaign laws regarding the placement of signs within the public right-of-way.  During past campaigns, the city administration has had signs of many candidates removed and confiscated when they were so placed.  If we cannot trust them to equally apply the law in this regard, can we trust them to keep their word with this “public safety” money, especially when they know there will be no renewal in five years to worry about???

The problem with this tax is not the tax.  The problem with this tax is the city administration.  It is one that has proven time and again that it cannot be trusted.  This administration, including its willing accomplice in the City Law Director’s office, has demonstrated that they work not for the best interests of our city as a whole, but only for the best interests of themselves and a small group of influential “friends of city hall”, and as they do so, city council usually sits silently by, letting them do as they wish.  (Remember, they let their kangaroo court of a Historic Commission rule that hanging hundreds of junk auto hoods on two sides of a building at a main downtown intersection to be “historically appropriate”…and not one council person said a single word!!!)

Who knows what this gang will stretch and twist and distort the term “public safety” to include???  Haven’t friends of city hall already begun to make a case that the decorative fake gas lamps for South Main Street are actually a “public safety” item???  Certainly more “bike paths” will be considered “public safety” won’t they???  (We can’t have our bicyclists risk being run down by motorists now, can we???  And if they can’t see a thorn bush next to the sidewalk on Main Street without the fake gas lamps, won’t the bike paths through the park—read “park” as all the new green space resulting from millions of dollars’ worth of demolition—will need fake gas lamps as well!!)

What if the marquee of the Sorg Opera House or the wall around the Sorg Mansion  deteriorate and put pedestrians in danger???  Will Middletown Moving Forward be given a million or two in the name of "public safety" to restore one or both to their former glory???

The bottom line???  It seems to me that we don’t have now the police and firefighters that were promised if we passed the public safety tax five years ago.  What makes anyone think that the money will go towards what any reasonable person would perceive as “public safety” if we pass it now???

Perhaps it should be tried again when a new administration that has proven itself more trustworthy is in place.

That is my opinion, and I am entitled to it.