Last evening the City Finance Committee approved by a 2-1, to send Council President Michael Schweder's plan how to spend the casino host fee to full Council at their December 4th meeting. The finance committee consists of Joseph F. Leeson, Jr., Chairman, Jean Belinksi and Robert J. Donchez.
The Morning Call has an account here, and Express Times here.
Schweder's plan includes using 0ne-half the host fee of 8.7 million to cut property taxes, the other half would be used to hire 20 police officers, 10 firemen, 6 paramedics and 2 inspectors. The remaining money, estimated by Schweder at around 2 million, would be placed in a restricted fund only to be spent as authorized by Council.
The problems with Schweder's plan:
1. The City will not get the money until after the casino opens, estimated to be July, 2009, so how can he decide how to spend it now.
2. Schweder's numbers were not based on anything but his own imagination. He never spoke with the Department heads and never conducted a study. He arbitrarily chose the number of police, fire, paramedics and inspectors.
3. It is foolish for a City that is admittedly in debt and has to borrow from itself to pay bills, to cut property taxes. That is just asking for trouble down the road.
The real story:
Schweder is trying get his plan through council while he still has the votes to get it passed. Currently, Schweder has the four votes needed to pass the bill with Szabo, Leeson and Belinski. In January, William Reynolds joins council and voiced concerns over spending the money prematurely and using to cut taxes. He urged a wait and see approach that was similar to what Mowrer and Donchez said. They are not against cutting taxes but those decisions can not be made now.
As someone posted on the mcall.com forums, if Schweder is successful in getting his legislation passed, which he probably will be, he will force Callahan to veto it. Schweder does not have enough votes to override the veto, and by that time Reynolds will be on Council, so Schweder will not even have the votes to get the legislation passed again.
Then if Schweder decides to run for Mayor, he can attack Callahan for vetoing a tax cut resolution.
This whole mess is just some Dem on Dem Politics, and gets J. Michael Schweder into the DINO Club!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
I expect this type of politically motivated nonsense out of Mike Schweder, but how can the following council members possibly support this: Leeson, a supposed fiscal conservative, Belinski, the council member who supported the casino because we NEEDED the money to pay off debt, or Szabo, an allegedly principled person? I just don't get it. Are these three really as opportunistic as Schweder or does Schweder just control them? Kudos to Mowrer, Dolan, and Donchez for standing up to Schweder's latest bullying.
I am not surprised by this but disappoined in Leeson. He is too smart for this crap. Without a doubt this is personal on his part and wrong... Schweder won't run against callahan because he has no chance..Zero, None!
I cant stand Scweder. He is a duplicitous, repugnant idiot who rode his dad and grand dad's name.
However, he is right about this. Cut the taxes. I hope Mayor John sees this is the right thing to do.
Free Speech,
I disagree with you.
The money Schweder wants to use to cut property taxes is from an impact fee. The casino will not have a negative impact on the city property taxes. It will have a negative impact on the city services (ems, fire, police, street crews). Unless the impact fee is used to ease the negative impact on these essential services, the residents will see a downturn in these services.
Post a Comment