Proposed .5% Sales Tax Increase

The County Board has approved an advisory referendum to the April 3 ballot to add a half of a percent increase to our sales tax.

The board wants this money designated for cultural things like the zoo and the parks.

Let me make myself perfectly clear on this.

I AM OPPOSED TO THIS TAX INCREASE IN EVERY POSSIBLE WAY.

This is the new way of getting through tax increases, making them for something everyone loves, like parks.

Then you can take the park budget out of the regular budget and spend that money on other things. In short, find a new way to fund the parks then gobble up all that money on other things.

In reality it is just another tax increase. But this allows tax increase proponents to say things like what do you have against the zoo or good parks.

Absolutely nothing. They all go to quality of life, we have good ones now and being opposed to shadow tax increase does not mean you are opposed to parks or zoos.

We need economic development in this region, the absolute worst way to promote that is by adding to our already too high tax burden.

We need to find creative ways to lower taxes, not creative ways to raise them.