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Art
Although the utility tax was extended I would still like the LOVE BLOG to publish the presentation I made to Council on March 4, 2009.
John Musolf
Vote Against Town of Oro Valley Utility Tax Extension – March 4, 2009
· The Town of Oro Valley Council voted down the 4% utility tax in the 2005-2006 budget.
· The Town of Oro Valley Council voted down the 4% utility tax again in September 2006.
· The Town of Oro Valley Council proposed and approved a reduced 2% utility tax in December 2006.
· At the December 6, 2006 some council members stated that many verbal, email, and written comments had been received by the council members or town staff that supported the utility tax proposal. However, no documents were produced or quoted from and made part of the public record???
· At the December 6, 2006 meeting two of the council members spoke eloquently on the behalf of the taxpayers they represent:
o Mayor Loomis: “We cannot expect to continue to think that we can tax others (via fees) to pay for Oro Valley Services. The taxpayers need to contribute to the viability of Oro Valley. The utility tax is just one short-term method to obtain the necessary funding”.
o Councilman Kunisch: “The citizens need to pitch in and help maintain the quality of services in Oro Valley. The utility tax is just one short-term method to obtain the necessary funding”.
· It is true that a tax cannot be earmarked for a specific purpose but must be directed to the general fund. However, it was perfectly clear from the power-point presentation made by Town of Oro Valley staff and the discussions by the Town Council at the December 6, 2006 meeting that the 4% utility tax was being considered to fund 18.5 new staff positions (1.2 million dollars) and capital improvements (900,000 dollars). These requests had been repeatedly turned down in the budget process.
· When the proposed 4% utility tax was reduced to 2%, a sunset clause was added to end the short-term utility tax in April 2009.
· Now, with the sunset clause due to expire in April 2009 some members of the council want to extend this tax and place the revenue into the general fund because of budget shortfalls. I hope the Town Council does not follow the Federal Rescue Model and try to “Tax Our Way To Prosperity” to deal with the economic problems and our budget shortfalls.
· I would like to recommend to the Town Council that the sunset clause be enforced and the utility tax be allowed to expire in April 2009.
· Instead, the Town of Oro Valley should concentrate on ways to reduce spending, not tax its citizens. A couple of suggestions on spending reductions:
o Eliminate the $160,000 “donation” to the Metropolitan Tucson Convention and Visitor’s Bureau. The contribution is based on the “trickle down theory” that any economic gains that accrue to Tucson and Pima County tourism will benefit Oro Valley for simply being adjacent to Tucson and part of Pima County? What percent of the statistics in convention sales is directly related to Oro Valley only? How many times did MTCVB feature Oro Valley specifically in travel brochures and trade shows? Answer: None!
o Eliminate the $25,000 “donation” to the Critical Path Institute. As a Federal Taxpayer and state taxpayer I am forced to support the FDA’s Critical Path Initiative. Why as an Oro Valley taxpayer am I being asked to contribute again?
o Eliminate expenses for the Town Council members and Town Staff. I used to “eat out” once a week. I cut this down to once a quarter (3 months). Why can’t the TOV do a little belt-tightening?
o The Town publishes its own bi-monthly newsletter, The Oro Valley Vista. The newsletter is sent to all Oro Valley Postal Customers. Save money by suspending the printing of the “Vista” until the economy improves.
o Postpone the start of building and funding of the new Municipal Operations Center until the economy improves.
· It should be noted that no tax once enacted, has ever been rescinded in over 200 years since the revolutionaries in the original 13 colonies threw off the tax on tea from Britain and founded the United States of America.
John Musolf
Oro Valley Resident and Taxpayer
10 comments:
Because of the protracted deterioration of our economic stability virtually every segment of our society has been forced to pare down in spending, not just because we do not have the current means but because we might expect that this may continue on into some portion of the future. It seems that in times like these, virtually all of our common institutions cry out that they should be immune from trimming their contributions. We hear cries of deterioration in education, in health care, in public safety, in public utilities, etc., etc., etc. BUT, where are the cries against the deterioration of the values of our INTEGRITY? We, as a community allowed for a special tax on our utilities in order to fulfill what we deemed then to be a particular need at a particular time and we did so with a PROMISE of an expiration date. Now, there are those that say 'well, we did make a promise but times have changed so can't you just let us forget about the promise now that we're all settled into this pittance'?
Well, for me and many others, this is just one pittance on top of another and another and another,etc. It all adds up to not being merely a pittance but part of a gathering burden with no end in sight. A promise is a promise, a contract is a contract, and no, I cannot accept that these agreements be violated. If we, as Americans, continue to give up what some claim to be 'simple little nuisances' then what lies down the road - promises will become empty suits and lack of integrity will become our exposure.
As the above was written prior to the Council meeting of last Wednesday I would like to add a couple of notes:
This past Council meeting was attended by a plethora of police officers and while I admire them greatly for what they do, should they not set by example that the law is the law and integrity is a most basic element of their service? By their reaction to the defiance of sunsetting the utility tax, as was promised, their own ethic comes into question.
Jan Brewer, our new Governor, has just announced that she would like to initiate a "TEMPORARY TAX" to help balance the state deficit. Well, now we know how our 'leaders'
relish the word 'temporary'. Fat chance I would ever support another!
The OV Police have much too big a voice in this community in my opinion. They've become the "sacred cow" of Oro Valley...untouchable. I've never seen this in any other place I've lived.
Now really, just how are they going to capture all those Mexican drug cartels in our neighborhoods? With their radar guns?
Catching criminals costs money. It does not generate revenue for the town. Catching "speeders" generates revenue. Isn't that why they spend more time on the latter activity? Money is the bottom line.
I agree with Mr. Musolf. All these donations and other frivolous items need to be stopped. Paying taxes for town services is one thing, but taking my tax dollars and donating it to a cause that I may not care about is another thing. I prefer to choose whom I "donate" my money to.
Reducing spending should be the first priority.
From my understanding of the Mex/narcos who are apparently at our door, any police force, with a few big city exceptions, would be outgunned and, quite frankly, come out on the wrong side of any serious confrontation with such criminal groups. In the unlikely event there is a threat to Oro Valley, we better increase the utility tax to 3% and buy bigger guns.
Maybe a lot of the crime that is going on is not being printed or publicized.
There was a women who spoke at the council meeting last week about having a gun to her head, being robbed at a sandwich shop. Does anybody know the details?
The woman spoke at the council meeting, asked the members to count off 13 seconds, the time in which she indicated the OV police were on the site.
Somehow, the perpetrator managed to leave the Subway sandwich shop at the Rooney Ranch shopping center prior to the police arrival.
I do not understand.
OV Police were at the site of the crime in 13 seconds and they could not locate a suspect?
Maybe we need to buy track shoes rather than bigger guns.
Thanks.Ok, but did the guy really have a gun to her head? If the cops were there in 13 seconds then they must have been in the parking lot of
Rooney Ranch.
Anywhooooo, with the economy being so bad it stands to reason that crime will go up.
Yes, in this time of economic woe crime may go 'up'. However, as in all other professions, more bodies don't necessarily mean a better production result. Finding ways to work smarter and more efficiently IS and that should apply to law enforcement as well as any other service group. If we use fear as a tactic for unbridled 'policing' of our communities then who can say that this mentality could not lead to a 'police state' at a future time.
I hear ya Zev. Personally I am more concerned about the country leaning towards a "police State" mentality then OV.
Agree that more bodies does not always equate to better protection/service. I am not in favor of adding more police at this time nor do I think if a few officers were laid off we would suffer. How about police that are
stationed in schools? How does that work? School district covers a lot more then just OV. Do we really need police officers in schools?
But considering all factors, I will say that more police presence can help deter crime.
Law Enforcment in general is usually in a sort of no win situation with the public.
Note that all of the above is just my little opinion
My thoughts on the "13 second" speech:
If the cops were there in 13 seconds, then that means that they were already in the Rooney Ranch parking lot. She was lucky.
Whenever I've called the police, it's taken them at least 5 minutes to arrive at my house. This means there were no patrol cars in my neighborhood. Count off 5 minutes and think about how much damage a criminal can do in that amount of time. It also gives him plenty of time to get away. The Subway robber got away even though the cops were there in 13 seconds.
We have approx. 100 police officers in OV. I'm assuming there are three 8-hour shifts a day. Does this mean we have approx. 33 officers on duty during any 8 hour period? How is the work divided between those 33 officers? Are there 10 officers looking for speeders, 10 officers patrolling our neighborhoods, 10 officers completing paperwork, etc. It would be interesting to know the numbers and the assignments to see what areas have the most cops assigned to them, which would indicate what areas are deemed to be the most important.
I know there are some OV cops who read this site regularly. Perhaps one of them will be kind enough to answer that question.
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