By Barb Buntin
Better law makes better government and Arizona has actually been innovative. In common law, innovation is a good thing. Disclosure rules is one.
A Little Background
Propositions 401/402 were initiated because the TOP government at the time was not listening to the residents. Remember the public/private partnership involving the Ice Hockey Academy for Rumsey park? A lot of money spent on studies etc. Answers to even simple questions were “not clear”.
It took the Transparent Payson people 2 months to gather all the signatures needed for the initiatives and another 2 months of campaigning. All of this done by volunteers. 401/402 passed 2 to 1. A significant margin and a clear message from the people of Payson.
Then what happened?
The current administration and town attorneys wanted to overturn 401/402 with a majority vote of council members about a year ago. Transparent Payson was forced to hire an attorney to stop this ill-conceived maneuver.
Now what? More taxes!
Now the overlords of the TOP want to raise taxes and/or raise your property taxes (with General Obligation bonds (GO), BUT 401/402 is in the way of the GO bonds. 401/402 was on the agenda at the TOP Saturday “retreat” and also on the last council agenda it was discussed in “executive session”.
And they are in a big rush. WHY? We need more taxes for what?
As I see it the list of projects they are looking at fall into 3 categories. 1- delayed/deferred maintenance 2- on- going maintenance and 3- shiny new projects. My opinion is why would we want shiny new projects that will require additional money spent for upkeep when the TOP has shown they don’t prioritize maintenance?
It would be nice to have an aquatic/community center. But it seems the town needs to raise taxes and/or borrow money just to catch up with what we haven’t done.
It can be fairly argued that TOP has problems. Taylor pool, drainage in Rumsey, bathrooms in all the parks, roads, PD and FD buildings have problems, PSRS, 10 new HVAC units etc etc etc.
Major must-do items before any decisions made.
Do we know how good a job TOP is actually doing on spending and prioritizing the taxes they already get. Yes folks we need a forensic audit. We have to know before any decisions are made. And any money raised for a project must be spent on that project.
Transparency is the currency for trust.
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