Today was the day Rome and Floyd County citizens voted on our newest SPLOST proposal. This Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax is supposed to raise 26.4 million dollars during the next 24 months. The Rome City Commission has proposed that Floyd County needs the following:
Road improvements:
Park Upgrades:
These are some very important projects indeed, but I have some problems with another sales tax. Why are these needs so imperative? I don't believe all these items suddenly needed addressing now. Why didn't we vote on these things BEFORE we voted for the stadium? The stadium is a luxury, while these are the necessities to maintain our quality of life. Just makes me wonder what priority certain things have, as far as our city commissioners are concerned. It seems to me that it was more imperative that we have a stadium first, infrastructure second.
Other than the fact that I hate taxes, and especially taxes imposed on me by a bunch of yahoos, let's look at our commissioner's current list of pork.
Eight million for a waste treatment plant upgrade? That's quite a sum of money. I will plead ignorance here, though. For all I know, that is a reasonable number.
Nine million for a new Health Department? No way. I agree we need a new Health Department but as far as I'm concerned let them move to some old, vacant Walmart or something. I hear that the Post Office wants a new building (which we'll be taxed for, I'm sure), let them move into the old building.
Fourth Avenue courthouse? How many courthouses do we need? Didn't we just build a whole complex to house the courts and police? If we need another so soon, either we are in the midst of a crime epidemic, or someone who plans this stuff needs to be fired.
I don't really mind the road improvements. The roads involved I recognize as roads that carry quite a load of traffic.
Improving parks? Millions of dollars for parks? Do these people read the papers? Do they know we are in an economic slump? I like parks. They are pretty. If you want to improve a park, mow the grass. And my favorite, Crane Street. What improvements will they make at the Crane Street park? Stalls for the crack dealers? Ridiculous.
I, like most Romans, don't mind paying for things that are necessary. When times are tight, maybe you shouldn't spend money friviously. I think the commissioners should have pared down the spending a little. We shall see, though.