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Salem to wage community campaign for passage of income-tax increase
TweetThe chief said he’s close to having to recall an officer from a drug task force.
SALEM —The city needs more money if it is to keep up the quality of its roads and sewer system, Mayor Jerry Wolford said.
City council has approved placing a four-year, 0.5-percent income tax increase on the November ballot to pay for infrastructure improvements.
The tax increase, if approved, would bring in about $1.8 million a year for capital projects.
If approved, the revenue could only be used for capital improvements, such as road work and improving the city’s water and sewer systems.
Wolford said he will spell out, “what I want to achieve.”
The mayor said he would have fliers prepared, talk to service organizations and possibly have town hall meetings.
Without extra money for capital improvements, the mayor has said, the city’s infrastructure will decline.
He said the city may also try to bring in new businesses.
Police Chief Robert Floor said, “There is no good time to ask for a tax increase,” especially during the present sluggish economy,
But the chief said that his department has three positions unfilled following retirements or resignations. That’s a 15 percent reduction in the force.
Read the full story Monday in The Vindicator and on Vindy.com.
Comments
The chief (whom I respect very much) says "That’s a 15 percent reduction in the force." The city officials need to consider the following reductions:
Sekely Industries.........gone
Solartec......................gone
Eljer...........................gone
American Standard......reduced
Salem Label................gone
Butech Bliss...............reduced
These are the reductions in force that our city should be most worried about. Of course, our mayor had this to say "the city may also try to bring in new businesses". May also try???? Who is this guy?? The city as a whole isn't what it used to be. Everyone is "reducing". We don't need more government. Start making the cuts that Nestic has suggested looking into before you come to the already strapped taxpayers for more money to squander.
Maybe the county's #1 teabagger, the County Republican Chairman, can organize another 'tea party' like he did this summer to whip up interest to defeat this tax. I won't vote for it. The industrial tax base is gone and only those few who still have a job will pay this tax. The fat cats who are living off their family's fortunes and dividends and interest will be exempt. Yet all those people and everyone else who is retired and living off their retirement and the evil government's Social Security will be able to impose a tax on others that they themselves will not have to pay. Come on teabaggers and birthers and tin-foil hat crowd, where are you?
People either don't have jobs and if they do didn't get a raise or had their pay cut. Anybody who proposes a tax increase of any kind needs to be voted out of office.