letters-to-the-editor-20141102
PAC funded with your utility payments
Imagine my surprise when I opened my Hernando County Utilities bill and found a political mailing for the penny tax referendum.
Upon investigation, I was told by the utilities department that I should take it up with Virginia Singer, the public information manager. She told me that the mailing was paid for by the Penny for Projects political action committee. This gets better with time.
The political action committee has raised more than $160,000, primarily from the realtors associations and construction companies, all of which want growth and new roads, but also a $5,000 donation from the Withlacoochee River Electric Cooperative, Inc.
I didn’t know that I was funding the hard sell that is for the purpose to get me to agree with being taxed more. What a scheme.
Hugo Gottlich
Spring Hill
Penny tax is a misnomer
The proposed “1 cent tax” on the ballot is very misleading. Actually it is a 1 percent sales tax. Since the 1⁄2 percent tax that we now have expires, the government wants to add 1 percent to our current 6 percent, which will give us a 7 percent tax for the next 10 years. I called the commissioner’s office and was told this.
I think by calling it “1 cent” they hope to get people thinking it is only an extra penny, but that would only be on a $1 sale.
Robert G. Knowles
Spring Hill
Vote no on Amendment 1
I am quite sure that a great majority of us support protecting our environment and are wiling to fund sensible environmental projects and activities. But that surely does not include anything and everything that the environmental lobby (or anyone else) might conjure up.
Instead of relying on public support for specific projects and activities, we are trying to institutionalize environmental funding so that our environmental desires get funded no matter what else happens in our state.
Isn’t that what the proposed amendment to our state Constitution does? If it passes, we will be setting aside money without ever having a say again. The justification that I heard the other day is that the funding of things environmental has been “up and down” over the years. (And, what hasn’t?) Passage of this amendment will remove our legislators from the budget process with respect to things environmental (unless, I suppose, the environmentalists try to get even more environmental projects funded through the regular budgetary process where they will have to compete again).
Actually, the more you think about removing our state legislators from the budget process, the better the idea sounds. Just think no more “pork projects” (aside from those which we succeed in institutionalizing in our Constitution). No more “log rolling.” No more waste.
So how about this: Before we can go “all in” on this sort of proposal, we should divide up all the other things that are included in our budget and provide “guaranteed” funding for each of those things. Some percentage of our property tax (amount to be determined) should be guaranteed to the schools for construction. Another percentage for maintenance. Yet another for busing. Another for classroom instruction (with no more than a very small percentage of that figure being allowed for so called “administration.” And so it goes until we have all our income sources identified and specifically dedicated to specified activities. We will have once and for all set our budgetary priorities and our willingness to spend our tax money on them in concrete.
If we buy into this notion, fairness would seem to dictate that instead of locking in one activity at a time, we should take a comprehensive look at all our funding requirements and “lock them all in” in one fell swoop. That would help ensure equity. Hmmm …
In the meantime, we should let the environmental activity and projects compete with all the other things that are identified in our budget requests. No activity (no matter how “good” it sounds at the time) deserves a “leg up” on any other state activity. That would mean a no vote on Amendment 1.
J L Bispo
Spring Hill
‘Safe and prudent’ doesn’t matter in Brooksville
Russ Colombo, You just can’t get it through that ex-New York City cop head of yours that in Brooksville it doesn’t matter if you’re safe and prudent at a stop light. It doesn’t matter if you come to a complete stop and then precede to make a right-hand turn at a very safe speed of 10 to 15 mph, a normal rate anywhere in the rest of the U.S.A. You can get a ticket anyway.
Have you ever tried to take a right-hand turn at 3 mph with five or six cars behind you? Please come to Brooksville and try it. Better yet, come do everything your ex-cop mind tells you is a safe and prudent right-hand turn that you would make in NYC. Then, when you get your personal invitation to be a guest at the court house see if you are still such a big fan of the way Brooksville runs their red-light program.
J.T. Woods
Brooksville
