For many years, the pandering and the political have
taken over good judgment and fair play for taxpayers when it comes to
budget time in the St. Mary’s County Commissioner’s meeting room.
The commissioner boards, for much of the past 30
years, have gradually changed from funding schools, public safety and
public works projects from the funds of the taxpayers, to including
politically expedient contributions, not from their own pockets, but
from yours, to the pockets of those they wish to curry favor with.
The various commissioners have given tax money to
business groups and have had no accountability for these funds. As an
example, the commissioners, year after year, gave money to the Chamber
of Commerce for operating a visitors information center in the northern
end of St. Mary’s County. But the Chamber of Commerce closed the
visitor’s information center on weekends, right when visitors came to
the county and may have needed information.
Then the commissioners built an airport terminal,
but, of course, when they built it ten years ago, they didn’t have any
airlines bringing flights to the county and didn’t have any passengers
but they had a terminal, which sat empty but with all the lights on all
night. Then the commissioners rented the terminal out to the Chamber of
Commerce, which needed a new place to stay after the county, embarrassed
over the wasted money at the tourist information center, decided to
rectify that waste by spending nearly a million bucks providing a new
center at the entrance to the old Charlotte Hall Military Academy. The
new center does a far better job of greeting visitors, lets just hope
its open on weekends, as government employees don’t like to work
weekends, just look at the Sheriff’s Department, where all of the top
cops work days and all of the criminals work nights. There are still no
flights at the airport for the terminal.
The St. Mary’s Board gave money to the Minority
Business Alliance but that group couldn’t remember what they did with
the money.
The St. Mary’s Commissioners gave money to the St.
Mary’s College for the River Concert Series. They plan on doing it
again. The concerts are wonderful and jammed packed. It is unlikely that
those who attend would refuse to pay admission to the best show in town,
but the taxpayers should not be taxed for the benefit of others to sit
on a lawn, drink wine and chomp on cheese while enjoying good music.
Those who enjoy those activities should pay, and the taxpayers who want
to stay home and sit on their lawns and listen to the radio should not
be robbed to support this activity.
The St. Mary’s Commissioners fork over your money and
instead of the groups listing in the program that the money came from
the taxpayers of St. Mary’s County, the listing says that the money came
from the St. Mary’s Commissioners, which of course is not true. Those
politicians charge you for their meals when they go out to events, at
least Mattingly and Russell do so.
When the St. Mary’s Commissioners have decided to
rent out a public building, like the former Lexington Park library, they
didn’t advertise it to the public, and when the recently decided to rent
a private building for public use, they didn’t bother to advertise it.
Only Commissioner Larry Jarboe objects to the Bubba Deals and sometimes
it just gets a little old.
The way the public is raped each day as the
commissioners allow nonessential staff to take vehicles home, with all
of the gas paid by the public, is obscene.
The waste, fraud and abuse in the Homeland Security
spending should be investigated by a Grand Jury for criminal conduct and
the voters should look at the Democrats on the Board and the way they
toss around money and take a pledge to never again put a Democrat into
office as a county commissioner.
Commissioner Kenny Dement needs to figure out that
maintaining the constant yield is the only way to be reelected.
The tax hikes in this time of economic downturn is
wrong. The Commissioners need to cut spending and do it now. The tax
rate needs to be lowered and the spending on non-essential,
non-government groups needs to stop.
If the commissioners think that a private group is
deserving of funds let them donate their own damn money and keep their
thieving hands of the pockets of the taxpayers. For these pompous
blowhards to make themselves look benevolent with other people’s money
is outrageous.
The St.
Mary’s Commissioners can’t expect their staff to cut spending if they
don’t give them public instructions to do so.
This
year, we have seen the Board take firm actions to reduce spending
proposals brought forth such as $2 million ballfields and $600,000 horse
stables.
Still
sitting on the table is a $125,000 portable stage, which Commissioners
Jackie Russell and Tommy Mattingly, always fans of standing on a stage
and enjoying the roar of the crowd and the smell of the greasepaint,
think is a responsible use of the taxpayer’s funds.
Its time
to get real.
The
public got a big surprise this year when on the first day of the new
year they got the sticker shock of a huge round of increased property
assessments.
These
property assessments by the state are then applied to the county’s tax
rate and big jumps in property taxes will be passed on to property
owners. State officials say that they simply assess the property’s
values, so higher taxes are not their fault. Local officials say that
the state raises the assessment and the higher taxes are not their
fault.
The truth
is that an eight cent reduction in the tax rate is needed to prevent
property taxes from going up at exactly the time that property values
have fallen.
If the
State of Maryland truly thinks your property is worth what they have
changed the value to, how about them buying it from you?
It won’t
happen, because values have dropped, like the bubble the housing market
was, it has popped and yet the elected officials think you have to
continue to fund all the desires of the bureaucrats and special interest
groups who never found a spending plan they didn’t like.
The
danger of having Democrats in office is clearly evident now, with three
Democrats as St. Mary’s Commissioners and only one of the three, Dan
Raley, having a conservative attitude towards your money.
The other
two Democrats are sincere officials but need to get a grip on what the
economy has evolved to in the past two years, the dire economic
straights that the nation is in and stop all increases in spending.
The Board
needs to put it straight to the department heads, to come in with
budgets that are at least 10 percent less than last year and find ways
to give adequate services to the public while cutting out the fat.
The two
Republicans on the Board, who are cautious with spending, need to keep
their eye on the ball and say no to outrageous spending proposals such
as a retroactive retirement increase, going back ten years, for
deputies.
This
proposal has been brought forward by two members of the retirement board
who will personally benefit from the increase in benefits and propel St.
Mary’s County into a pension position such as put New York City into
bankruptcy, a police pension the city could not afford.
But the
politicians are afraid of the deputies and are afraid to say no, as they
have to stand for election in two years, at least three of them.
The
Sheriff is afraid to stand on the side of the taxpayers as well.
All of
these officials should have the guts and the intellect to just say no to
spending proposals which are unfair to the taxpayer, pay a personal
dividend of thousands of dollars to two high-ranking officials of the
St. Mary’s Sheriff’s Department and the treasury cannot afford.
The
purpose of taxing the masses was initially set forth when income taxes
were first promulgated, for building our infrastructure, defending the
nation from foreign enemies and for the vast costs of public works.
Then the
Democratic Party discovered that using public funds to bribe large parts
of the electorate could win elections and the flood gates opened. When
the Democrats aren’t conniving on how to make hay with tax funds, the
Republicans are out to make their pals rich.
Since the
War on Poverty began, billions have been spent on the poor and yet we
have more of them. Tax breaks for the rich are more plentiful than ever
but the investors and corporate leaders keep moving good jobs overseas,
putting the middle class workers out of jobs.
We have a
system of interstate highways, all of them with bridges which are
dangerous and this great public transportation system was built with the
disastrous combination of graft, greed and low bid. From corrupt
politicians to corrupt labor union officials to corrupt corporate
executives, the public’s money has been emptied out of their pockets and
into the pockets of crooks.
What
hasn’t been doled out to worthless sots who don’t and won’t work, has
been spent on luxuries for crooks.
Meanwhile, the working poor and the working middle classes continue to
go to work, pay for college for their children, send their kids off to
war to die and then the flimsy inspections of our bridges fail to
prevent the road from dropping beneath them as they come home from work
and crashing into a river.
This area
has a bridge which has already been closed once due to major structural
damage yet the State of Maryland is only this past year making the first
move towards construction of a new span over the Patuxent River. State
officials continue to sing the tune that the bridge is safe but they
can’t point to one complete inspection of the underwater pilings by
divers with cameras. If they have such proof, let us see it.
Pax River
is the economic engine of Southern Maryland and the Governor Thomas
Johnson Bridge is a key transportation artery for this economy. Maryland
officials better heed this warning. Get a new bridge underway quick.
If we had
the money wasted on Baltimore City and PG County schools; needless
public facilities such as buying more state parkland when we can’t
manage the parks we have, in just one year, this bridge could be built.
They can still run those schools, just cut out the waste, graft and
corruption.
Can we
really expect these politicians to take their hands out of the till?
Not as
long as these jurisdictions are run as South American Banana Republics.
Take at
look at Baltimore’s bridges the next time you go to an Orioles game,
take a good look at their soaring overpasses and think about the money
that is fed into the corruption while the infrastructure fractures. Make
sure you keep a St. Christopher’s medal in your vehicle.
The truth
of the matter is that the Solomon’s bridge is not the only public
infrastructure which has been delayed while burgeoning social spending
spirals. We need a new four or six lane bridge over the Potomac at
Morgantown, we need a ferry boat system for the southern Chesapeake Bay
between Southern Maryland and the Eastern Shore. We need the Purple Line
of Metro to connect Montgomery and Prince George’s Counties inside the
Beltway and we need commuter rail into Southern Maryland.
Will we continue to let
Banana Republic politics guide our future?
