TOM'S TALES FOR THE WEEK
Submitted to Shelton Blog by Tom Davis Mason County Progressive
Monday, May 21, 2012
6:00 PM: City of Shelton Commission Meeting
It was a race to the finish line as the City meeting went gavel to gavel in just under nine minutes. Mayor Cronce was on vacation, leaving Finance Commissioner, Mike Olsen to ride herd. It was a good opportunity to do away with unnecessary formalities, as there was nothing on the agenda that needed public scrutiny. Since I was the only “public” in attendance, I was tempted to take to the podium, just to see if anyone would pull out a stopwatch. I didn’t, and made it home for supper while the steam was still coming off the pasta.
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
6:00 PM: Regular session of Board of County Commissioners (BOCC)
Item 8.1: Approval of Lodging Tax Fund application for the Economic Development Council (EDC) of Mason County in the amount of $18,500 for a project to connect the community with the Ridge Motorsports racetrack to promote hotel stays, increase the number of people frequenting local restaurants and retail services.
Sounds good, right? “…connect the community with the Ridge Motorsports Park...” But all the local businesses are already listed in the Shelton Guide that can be accessed from the Ridge Motorsport Park website. It seems unlikely that people smart enough to use the internet to find their way to a rural racetrack can’t find a local place to eat or sleep.
Never one to let a dead cat completely out of the box, what EDC Director Matt Matayoshi is really proposing is a new website and an on site racetrack kiosk, complete with concierge. All this will be funded with lodging tax money, as recommended by the LTAC Committee and approved by the two Commissioners in attendance, Steve Bloomfield and Tim Sheldon.
And now an unsolicited word about, well, everything:
Our home is located 4.87 aerial miles south of the racetrack, yet we still hear the cars and bikes navigating the course. I pity those homeowners who live closer to the track, like in the Dayton Trails area, especially when the drag-strip opens.
When it comes to bad ideas no one gets it better than our Economic Development Council. This may be due, in part, to the fact that its director does not live in our County, or that the EDC itself has become little more than the economic arm of local officials.
Over the past two years, the EDC has stood silently by while good proposals, like the Shelton Hills Development went begging for help, yet enthusiastically supported siting an air polluting biomass plant and a noise polluting racetrack in the community.
As a result of similar exploitations, our environment -- water quality, natural forests, clean air, even the peace and quiet of rural life -- have been methodically degraded.
All of which brings me to the current state of County government, which has prospered while the community as a whole continues to struggle.
At the end of fiscal year 2008, County revenues were at 25.9M, with expenditures at 27.2M. Cash and investments on hand were 2.2M. By 2011, revenues were reported at 24.7M and expenditures at 23.3M, effectively reversing a 1.3M deficit in 2008 to a 1.4M gain in 2011. Cash and investment in 2011 also continued to grow, and is reported at 7M.
Again, sounds like a good thing, right? But what does it really mean? It means that while things got worse for you and me – property values went down while taxes went up – County finances improved. (Note: in 2011 over 70M dollars of the County’s budget came from property and real estate excise taxes.)
So why is it you can’t even walk into the County Administration Building on a Friday and speak to someone? The reception desk is closed and the lights are off. What does it say about County officials who continue to combine positions and departments and cut services, all the while sitting on a 7M surplus?
And while local government coffers grow, small businesses continue to suffer and big timber flourishes, supported by our tax dollars (73% of county land is designated as “natural resource lands”). And what of our shellfish industry? Well, they’re reporting a 90% mortality rate of seedlings, due to poor water quality conditions.
Now, it might sound like I’m all over the map here, but you need to connect the dots, some of which are not readily apparent. To simplify, follow the money: if our local government is doing well but its people and small businesses are not, that should be a clue.
If we continue down the current path, we can expect further environmental degradation, more concentration of political power and money, and continued economic vulnerability.
All of which leads me to the following question: If our leaders are not working for you and me, who are they working for?
Have a safe Memorial Weekend.
Later…
No comments:
Post a Comment