Having Your Cake and Eating it Too
I just got a Tax hike update from my good buddy Tim Pugh
Cedar Rapids Independance Day "Taxed Enough Already" Tea Party
GlobalBasic Info
| Type: | |
| Description: | Sending a message to the government that they need to stop spending our money on wasteful crap. People are meeting up under the aluminum tree in downtown between 1st ave and I380.
Date and Time to bel announced.
Please visit crteaparty.org for information, updates, or details.
This is a not partisan group or and anti Democrat or Obama group, both Republicans and Democrats are responsible for waste.
We are not against any party or person but against out of control government spending and waste. |
It would appear to be about an attempt to quietly raise some more of our Taxes.
I have a friend of mine on the CR Public Library Board of Trustees and he was the one lone “no” vote on the budget for 2010 that included a property tax levy increase figured into it. Now comes the actual vote to go on record for a recommendation to pursue a property tax increase – it will take place this Thursday at 4:00 PM while the rest of civilization is actually working.
The agenda action item is for an intent to pursue a 27 cent library levy increase up from the current 8 cent special library levy – an increase of 19 cents (you raise about one million dollars in revenue for every 16 cents on the levy) so this will be an increase in excess of $ 1 million dollars in additional property taxes. This recommendation goes forward from the Library Board of Trustees to the City Council that also has to vote on this – but a recommendation from an independent commission, like the Library board of trustees, gives them the cover to “do the will of the people”.
What my friend is looking for is a little support and a little attention to be drawn to this matter; the quicker you can get out in front of an issue like this, the more attention that can be brought to it and the better the chance the Council may pare it back – or with enough heat, reject the increase in total. Otherwise this could slide thru from the Library Board on a Thursday afternoon without even being covered and slipped onto next week’s “consent” agenda at the Council meeting for a voice vote – in other words, a done deal.
I am advising him to use the term “Culture of Delay” in his remarks in urging the rest of the Library Board to vote against this tax increase recommendation; Brian Fagan is the Council liaison to the Library Board and has been counseling them on how to pursue this course of action. For instance
we know that the damage done to the existing main library is in excess of 50% of pre flood value so FEMA pays for an entire new one.
However there are only two options, either raze the existing structure and build on the same site with protections against the 100 year flood event. Or second, build on a new site outside of the flood plain (like Westdale for example).
Instead of making a decision and settling with FEMA which would allow for a release of funds from them for not just a building, but also for contents – this property tax increase is being proposed to largely pay for new materials to replace, in the interim, what was lost in the flood.
Call me cynical and suspicious, but to these jaundiced eyes it looks like an attempt to raise taxes and if one opposes the raise then one is mean spirited and does not care about the damage done to the Community by the flood
AND
Get the FEMA money as well, later, Then keep the tax hike because during the shuffle no one will notice?
Remember I made the title of this
Having YOUR Cake and Eating it Too
Not
Having THEIR Cake and Eating it Too.
They are not going to be paying the higher property Tax, YOU will.
Keep a weather eye out for the July 4th Taxed Enough Already Rally
and spread the word about this Property Tax Hike.
UPDATE: Tim Pugh forwarded the Library's Responce to me.
I'd be happy to respond to this. FEMA covers our lost materials but the proposed levy increase would be for money to run our facility not for items lost in the flood. As you may remember even preflood, the library was incredibly challenged from an operating funding perspective. While FEMA/State/IJOBS will pay for a substantial portion of the capital cost of building a new building, the library levy is important because we need the operating funds to run the facility. It is absolutely critical that we have this support from the community. I can really bottom line this library levy. It really boils down to the square footage that we can support from an operational funding perspective.
We’d like to come back better than before
– with the passage of the levy, we can do that and build a beautiful new facility that will meet the needs today and of future generations. If we can’t pass a library levy, it calls into question whether we can even afford to operate a building the size that we had preflood. That’s how serious this is.
His reaction was much the same as what passed through my mind
However this building is not built, so what operating cost?
