My first foray into local politics began a few years back when the Racine County Board was wrangling over the issue of building an indoor ice skating rink. Needless to say, I opposed the idea. I felt that, at the very least, Racine County residents should be able to decide this issue via referendum. Yet, the supervisors who supported the rink idea were adamantly opposed to allowing voters to decide the issue directly. I thought that was ridiculous. I thought that a new ordinance could address this problem. I worked with my county supervisor Ken Vetrovec, who introduced an ordinance proposal which would have required expensive "quality of life" projects to be approved by direct citizen vote. The measure was going nowhere and I was getting more than a little irritated. Eventually, the measure came to a vote in the executive committee and was soundly defeated. Robin Vos offered a nonsense rationale for voting against the measure, and it was suggested to me at the time that he was doing the bidding of County Exec Bill McReynolds who was opposed to my proposal. So why is this relevant now?
Because if my proposed ordinance had passed, the funding for "quality of life" projects would be decided on a per project basis by Racine County voters. But now a task force, initiated by Bill McReynolds, has proposed a 1/2% sales tax increase for the purpose of funding "quality of life" projects. If it passes, voters will have much less say about which "quality of life" projects to approve. So if we support the proposed $69 million tax increase, it is likely that we will end up paying for a whole lot of expensive projects that we don't really want.
And I could have put and end to this nonsense two years ago, were it not for the opposition from our two most noted conservatives, Robin Vos and Bill McReynolds.
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9 comments:
Dennis, this is the furtherest from the truth. Robin Vos wasn't bidding for me, I can bid for myself. If you remember when the last sale tax purposal was pushed, I stated that I would veto such a plan. Mac
Well, for the sake of this discussion, I will assume that you, anon, are indeed Bill McReynolds. As County Executive, you did not have a vote on the matter before the finance committee. Perhaps it was the executive committee, but it doesn't matter. Either way, you did not have a vote. This proposal of mine died in committee. At the time, we had spoken, and you did not support my proposal. The question I had then, and now, is why wouldn't you? Perhaps Robin did not do your bidding, as I suggested. Perhaps he acted out of conviction. And perhaps you opposed the ordinance proposal out of conviction. Perhaps now that we have a tax increase proposal being floated by a committee that you organized, you can explain to the Free Racine readers why you did not support a measure that would have required expensive "quality of life" proposals to get explicit approval from voters. Of course, this is assuming that anon and Mac are one and the same.
FYI anon and Mac are one and the same. Mac called me this morning and we discussed this matter. Mac does not recall the ordinance proposal that I was pushing. However, he does not support taking these issues to referenda, as we elect representatives for that purpose. My own views on referenda have evolved such that I am nearly in agreement with Mac on his opposition to government by referenda. However, we nearly got ourselves stuck with an indoor ice arena a few years back. If it had gone to referenda, it would have gotten shot down by a large margin. And the ice arena supporters knew it, hence their opposition to referenda. So there are times when the electorate will make a better decision than a bunch of supervisors who are getting their arms twisted behind the scenes by Racine's movers and shakers.
With regards to the newly proposed 1/2% sales tax increase, Mac was reluctant to state a firm position on whether he would veto it or not, but he did reiterate his no tax increase credentials, so you can take that politico-speak any way you want to. He did point out that the task force noted that Racine county supports "quality of life" stuff quite substantially compared to similar counties.
And a final thought. Mac preferred not to answer my questions on this blog, noting that people will twist what is said etc... His preference was to talk about this over the phone. Myself, I prefer to speak publicly about public matters.
great thing to have public officials speak publicly. They say and do anything behind closed doors, thanks for making them accountableand reminding him that he is a "public" official
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