Pacific Mayor Adams City Hall Expansion at ANY COST
Pauline Masson, Pacific Editor Posted: Wednesday, August 24, 2011 6:32 pm
Our local Don Quixote has finally found a dragon with which to do battle.
B. J. Lawrence has been described more than once in this column as a misguided knight — errant out tilting at windmills, in search of dragons to slay, an allusion meant to illustrate her unending struggle to defend the poor and downtrodden.
Last week, at long last she found a foe to match her intensity.
At the Aug. 16 board of aldermen meeting, the mayor provided the first thrust, attacking B.J.’s credibility and her truthfulness, accusing her of spreading rumors in her blog. She ignored the jibe and aimed her lance directly at the heart of the hero of the hour. This time he had gone too far, she told the mayor. He had taken a step that everyone in the city would feel.
What she railed against was a decision by aldermen to raise the property tax rate 2.72 cents on every $100 of assessed valuation.
The unfortunate Pacific taxpayers were already suffering, she said, and could not afford more taxes.
In a series of thrusts and parries, she attacked the aldermen’s decision to inflict more cost on taxpayers with the intensity of a noble knight out to save the world.
And then — wonder of wonders — they spread before her an exposed flank, a mile-wide gap in the official armor. They said they really were not raising taxes at all. They said that the city of Pacific would see a decrease in assessed valuation and property owners would not pay more taxes.
They said they were using a formula based on neutral taxation — no increase, no decrease — that was set forth by the county and the state. In this case, they said, they had to yield to a higher power.
Why they gave her such a perfect opening befuddles the mind and beclouds an otherwise clear issue.
She said she did not believe that the assessed valuation of her home would decrease and she doubted that anyone in the room would see a decrease in the valuation of their home.
The room happened to be full. It appeared that most of the audience members were there to address yet another city action, the method in which the construction bid on the city hall expansion was handled. For whatever reason they were there, the people in the audience heard her arguments and those of the mayor, who addressed her directly, saying, “I’m telling people, don’t believe me and don’t believe you.”
Members of the audience squirmed in their chairs and mumbled under their collective breath.
What people can believe, the diminutive jouster said, is that the new tax rate will produce exactly the amount of revenue needed to pay for the annual bond repayment on the city hall expansion.
This has been another one of her dragons, the elected officials’ decision to expand city hall. She said local taxpayers would have to pay for it and local taxpayers could not afford it.
Now he had proven her accusation to be true by beefing up the city budget to cover the bond payments on the construction job.
The tax rate didn’t have anything to do with the city hall expansion, officials said.
Oh, but it did, she said. The rate was determined by the budget and the budget was inflated by the cost of city hall expansion. They could have held off on the city hall expansion, not budgeted the money, and they would not have needed to raise taxes.
I have to tell you . . . I saw a very different story in this newspaper last week on an almost identical municipal action. When the city of Washington raised its property tax rate by a similar amount, the lead sentence in the article said “Taxes go up slightly.”
It leaves one to ponder why Pacific officials didn’t repeat, in simple phrases, what appears to be the reality of the new tax levy, “a slight increase in taxes,” instead of saying over and over, it’s not a tax increase.
In the interest of full disclosure, I should report here that I personally don’t think the tax increase is all that bad and I don’t think expanding city hall is a bad idea. But I do think citizens know what the phrase “Read my lips. No new taxes,” means.
One can speculate that city officials missed an opportunity for literary excellence. They could have orated about small tax costs to individual taxpayers and big gains for the city as a whole with a new city hall, instead of holding forth with the theme that taxes would not go up.
They could have disarmed their unlikely opponent with her own weapon, saying we’re a small city and we’re making a small tax increase and we’re asking property owners to make a small sacrifice instead of prattling on about being hamstrung by higher powers.
Instead of dismembering his opponent, the mayor enhanced her image as a dreamer — someone willing to face a foe she knows had already won and to say out loud what no one else was willing to say. Rather than disarm her, he made her stronger.
She didn’t slay any dragons — the property tax rate increase was passed. But at the end of the debate she was still in the game. As jousting goes in La Mancha, folks, our little Don Quixote punched a few holes in a badly positioned windmill.
Contact Pauline Masson at paulinemasson@att.net or 314-805-9800.
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Our local Don Quixote has finally found a dragon with which to do battle.
B. J. Lawrence has been described more than once in this column as a misguided knight — errant out tilting at windmills, in search of dragons to slay, an allusion meant to illustrate her unending struggle to defend the poor and downtrodden.
Last week, at long last she found a foe to match her intensity.
At the Aug. 16 board of aldermen meeting, the mayor provided the first thrust, attacking B.J.’s credibility and her truthfulness, accusing her of spreading rumors in her blog. She ignored the jibe and aimed her lance directly at the heart of the hero of the hour. This time he had gone too far, she told the mayor. He had taken a step that everyone in the city would feel.
What she railed against was a decision by aldermen to raise the property tax rate 2.72 cents on every $100 of assessed valuation.
The unfortunate Pacific taxpayers were already suffering, she said, and could not afford more taxes.
In a series of thrusts and parries, she attacked the aldermen’s decision to inflict more cost on taxpayers with the intensity of a noble knight out to save the world.
And then — wonder of wonders — they spread before her an exposed flank, a mile-wide gap in the official armor. They said they really were not raising taxes at all. They said that the city of Pacific would see a decrease in assessed valuation and property owners would not pay more taxes.
They said they were using a formula based on neutral taxation — no increase, no decrease — that was set forth by the county and the state. In this case, they said, they had to yield to a higher power.
Why they gave her such a perfect opening befuddles the mind and beclouds an otherwise clear issue.
She said she did not believe that the assessed valuation of her home would decrease and she doubted that anyone in the room would see a decrease in the valuation of their home.
The room happened to be full. It appeared that most of the audience members were there to address yet another city action, the method in which the construction bid on the city hall expansion was handled. For whatever reason they were there, the people in the audience heard her arguments and those of the mayor, who addressed her directly, saying, “I’m telling people, don’t believe me and don’t believe you.”
Members of the audience squirmed in their chairs and mumbled under their collective breath.
What people can believe, the diminutive jouster said, is that the new tax rate will produce exactly the amount of revenue needed to pay for the annual bond repayment on the city hall expansion.
This has been another one of her dragons, the elected officials’ decision to expand city hall. She said local taxpayers would have to pay for it and local taxpayers could not afford it.
Now he had proven her accusation to be true by beefing up the city budget to cover the bond payments on the construction job.
The tax rate didn’t have anything to do with the city hall expansion, officials said.
Oh, but it did, she said. The rate was determined by the budget and the budget was inflated by the cost of city hall expansion. They could have held off on the city hall expansion, not budgeted the money, and they would not have needed to raise taxes.
I have to tell you . . . I saw a very different story in this newspaper last week on an almost identical municipal action. When the city of Washington raised its property tax rate by a similar amount, the lead sentence in the article said “Taxes go up slightly.”
It leaves one to ponder why Pacific officials didn’t repeat, in simple phrases, what appears to be the reality of the new tax levy, “a slight increase in taxes,” instead of saying over and over, it’s not a tax increase.
In the interest of full disclosure, I should report here that I personally don’t think the tax increase is all that bad and I don’t think expanding city hall is a bad idea. But I do think citizens know what the phrase “Read my lips. No new taxes,” means.
One can speculate that city officials missed an opportunity for literary excellence. They could have orated about small tax costs to individual taxpayers and big gains for the city as a whole with a new city hall, instead of holding forth with the theme that taxes would not go up.
They could have disarmed their unlikely opponent with her own weapon, saying we’re a small city and we’re making a small tax increase and we’re asking property owners to make a small sacrifice instead of prattling on about being hamstrung by higher powers.
Instead of dismembering his opponent, the mayor enhanced her image as a dreamer — someone willing to face a foe she knows had already won and to say out loud what no one else was willing to say. Rather than disarm her, he made her stronger.
She didn’t slay any dragons — the property tax rate increase was passed. But at the end of the debate she was still in the game. As jousting goes in La Mancha, folks, our little Don Quixote punched a few holes in a badly positioned windmill.
Contact Pauline Masson at paulinemasson@att.net or 314-805-9800.
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posted by ERIC REICHERT at 6:54 AM
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