Piqua Trying For A Recall

It looks like the city of Piqua will be keeping the four members of commission that were up for recall. The vote was 70% to retain and 30% to oust. Only 20% of the voters turned out, 10% less than predicted. Would the same thing happen in Middletown? Would the supporters of the current regime get to the polls in overwhelming numbers to dilute the voters who want replacements? Probably. Would be just like the school levies that pass. Load up the buses with yes voters to crush the resistance. Wonder how the Middletown voters would feel if the recall issues were for a repeal of the city income tax back to 1.5%/ safety levy repeal of that extra .25%? Maybe money talks louder than councilmember disatisfaction. Think they would show up to vote to put more money back into their pockets? Perhaps........but then again, we have alot of people here in town that love to ride the apathy train, don't we?

"Commissioner Donham acknowledged the difficult financial status of the City. It is hard to lay off employees and cut programs but the State of Ohio does not permit deficit spending by municipalities. The City leaders of the past and Mr. Burns have done a good job. We have had more companies making more profits and employing more people, creating more City revenues in the past. All this has been reduced considerably. We have been fortunate to have gained a great deal of outside funding in the past and these are shrinking rapidly. We must take steps to do all we can to continue to provide all the services we can on our own."

Looks like the city was having revenue issues as far back as the 80's, even with more companies making more profits, people employed creating payroll taxes and corporate tax revenues collected. Here it is 2011, and we are still having revenue issues. Difference is, we don't have those companies anymore nor the jobs which have cut revenues for the city drastically. All the people that have occupied council seats since the 80's have not been smart enough nor thought past the end of their nose about how to maintain city revenue. They saw things changing but sat on their hands and ignored the signs. None of these so-called talented, intelligent combinations of councilmembers over the years has correctly addressed this issue properly. And we all can see the downward spiral it has taken the city.    Even the late, great "city father" Bill Donham was asleep at the wheel on this.