Bill Wayne's Political Pages - The Gadfly
Gadfly 12
Printed in the Warrensburg Gazette August 26, 1999


The Gadfly is a series of letters offering commentary on local issues and published in the Warrensburg Gazette.

Dear Editor

Congratulations to our current City Council for their firm stance in favor of fiscal responsibility. They refused the temptation to mortgage the future to pay for current projects. While this may force a cutback on some other projects for a few years, it's better than going ever deeper into debt. In addition to the visible projects such as roads, over recent years the City has spent heavily on capital improvements by buying the MGE building and properties on the north side of Madison Street west of the Municipal Building. When the need to support access to the Veteran's Home arose, they didn't have money set aside. Then, the City decided to continue on with the previously planned projects in addition to PCA Road, knowing the money wasn't there.

I hear that city staff is looking for operational cuts from all departments. Comments printed in the daily paper lead me to believe that staff would like to continue the planned capital improvement program next fiscal year; my impression of Council member comments at the work session was that they were more inclined to postpone some capital improvements to rebuild fund balances. It will be interesting to see how this game plays out.

City Manager Jim Landon presented a detailed overview of the city financial system to the Council work session on Wednesday and to the Park Board on Tuesday. I see the Park Board is still hoping for a sales tax; have they considered that another sales tax could end up reducing overall city tax revenue when people choose to shop elsewhere? They're concerned that they promised the voters all kinds of freebies if they'd just vote to tax someone else to build the "palace." Isn't it just possible that the users should share in the costs and that taxes to support the "palace" should be limited to those who benefit from the expenditure.

I see some tourism activity from the GWACC&VC (Greater Warrensburg Area Chamber of Commerce & Visitors Center). They've placed event schedules at some local restaurants and they were actually represented at our Osage Lakes region tourism meeting. If they're doing all this, there should be no reluctance to openly account for their use of room tax money.


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