Billy Yow has said over and over again, that the only reason he is supporting a proposed 3 cent tax increase is because when the voters approved a 300 million dollar bond package for the school system in 2003, they knew they were voting themselves a tax increase and he is only supporting a tax increase to cover that debt.
However, the truth of the matter is that the tax debt for the 300 million dollar bond package this year is only 8.9 million dollars. The budget plan lead by Billy Yow and Paul Gibson calls for using 6 million dollars of the lottery fund to pay for the school debt. That means that if the debt for the 300 million dollar bond is only cost the county 2.9 million dollars this year. Therefore, Mr. Yow shoud only be voting for less than a 1 cent tax increase instead of a 3 cent tax increase Ask Mr. Yow to explain that. The additional 2 cent tax increase that Billy Yow is supporting equates to over 8 million dollars in addtional taxes that we don't need from the tax payers to pay for the 300 million dollar school bond package for the schools.
Where is Billy's justification in supporting a 3 cent tax increase? Billy is only supporting the tax increase because he and Paul Gibson have hidden motives in working together to raise your taxes. Billy and Paul coincidentally are also supporting a COP program for the funding of the 105 million dollar jail. The plan is to put the 105 million dollar jail on the November ballot knowing that is will be defeated, then Paul, Billy, Kirk Perkins, Kaye Cashion, John Parks and Mike Winstead ,will then vote to fund the jail with Certificates of Participation, better known as COPS.
What Billy and Paul are also not telling the public is, if the jail bonds pass or if the jail is funded with COPS, there will be a tax increase for that debt of 4-5 cent and another 20 -23 million dollars per year to fund the operation of the new jail, which is another 4-5 cent increase in your taxes. That will be an additional 8-10 cent increase in your taxes on top of what your increase will be this year from the County and the City.
You can shoot the messenger if you want to, but I am only telling you what they don't want you to know. This year's County Budget can easily be passed with no increase in property taxes, if we as County Commissioners and Staff were to put our heads together to make it happen. Even without that happening, the increase still should be no more than 1.5 to 2 cent.
However, Paul Gibson is bending over backwards to have it his way or no way. He wants to give the School Board the Check book and the pen too, to write their own check without demanding that they be accountable to the tax payers for the funds they have already gotten. He is also deliberately trying to pass this year's budget without the input of the three African Americans on the board, all three of which are past Chairpersons of the board.
The Commissioner are scheduled to adopt the County budget on next Thursday June 21, 2007. If you don't want your taxes to go up unnecessarily, then you need to call, Billy Yow 382-4885, Paul Gibson 210-1049, Kaye Cashion 273-2820, John Parks 906-0657, Kirk Perkins 324-9000 and Mike Winstead 362-2055.
Comments:
Now as for the jail and the COPS, the voters are going to fight both of them ,and all of you, and especially Gibson and Yow, are too savvy to chance losing the next election by voting against what has become a sore spot with the property owners-voters. The COPS will really get them thrown out of office fast.
As for tax hikes sir, you have absolutely no room to talk. Taxes went up every year under your guidance and you well know why. It was the juicy little perks and pay raises and pet projects you voted yourself with the help of you cohorts and spin-less Democrats who felt they needed the Simkins PAC endorsement to win an election. That is no longer the case. The voters are remembering one little slip that you made and I quoted from the News and Recorded in my blog. In fact, I make sure to quote it often. “…..Melvin "Skip" Alston (a black Democrat) even said to the news paper reporters “you tell them what you want and they tell you what they want. That’s called compromise.”
Now go back to the one thing you were on the right path with and that is the alternatives to incarceration. Thanks to Cara Michelle Fisher who writes a blog on homelessness and is a very well respected advocate for the homeless people are getting behind this movement. She and a lot of other bloggers, including me, are well aware that at the very least a third of the people in jail need help they can only get from other sources and yet they are thrown in with criminals and then thrown back out on the streets until they are arrested again. We will back you on this big time. But we will not back a jackass braying. Sincerely, Brenda Bowers
I can only say that I must be on the right track to get you and your friends all upset about the truth of your friend Billy Yow and his support for a tax increase. You need to tell Billy to tell the truth about his support for a tax increase and stop saying that he is only voting for the increase to pay for the bonds that the public approved.
As I stated before, the 300 million dollar bonds will cost the County 8.9 million dollars this year. Billy and Paul are planning to take 6 million dollars from the lottery funds that the Schools system will receive next year to pay for that debt. That means that the County will only be responsible for 2.9 million dollars of that bond debt for next year.
If Billy and Paul and the other four Commissioners vote to increase taxes by 3 cents, this will generate an additional 12 milllion dollars from the tax payers of this County. So if Billy was only voting to increase taxes to pay for the 300 million dollar bond debt, then that increase will be less than 1 cent, not 3 cents.
I wouldl love to talk to you about this more in detail, if you would like to call me. Until then, get your facts right before you call anyone stupid.