For all of you who do not want tax increases and think that government has become too big and intrusive, I imagine these beliefs would also apply to local and county governments and not just the federal institutions. So you might share my feelings that the county and city governments should find ways to make the necessary budget cuts – whether it’s in personnel, salaries, programs and services – rather then raise our tax rates and wastewater rates. It’s bad enough that our property values have steadily decreased over the last few years; and we the people are doing our best to make ends meet. So it’s insult on injury when the county government raises our tax rates, so they can receive the same amount of revenue. They should make budget cuts that match the percentage of decreased value of our homes. As our representatives, they should not tax us more. They should be more fiscally responsible instead of compounding our loss of equity.

They will tout and argue how necessary all their services – especially the police and fire – are to the community, creating fear around how such cuts might threaten our safety. When in truth, they could do minimal, across-the-board cuts in personnel, salaries, programs and services; and all this would not affect our safety one bit. The fire department is currently using this fear-mongering tactic in trying to convince us to raise the mill rate (another tax increase). If we the people have to, then the fire department and the rest of our bureacracy can make do with less. My vested interest is to keep my taxes as low as possible by making all aspects of our government as fiscally responsible as possible. What’s your vested interest?

Henry Twombly