THE PUBLIC MIND: CITIZENS SHOULD PROTEST CITY TAX INCREASES

To the Editor:

Your "Opinion" in the June 7, 1992, Southeast Missourian stinks like week-old garbage! Sure you are for the general public being charged more for solid waste but who is it you pay to handle yours? Your paper and other business interests have a choice in who handles your garbage and I am willing to bet that BFI is cheaper than the city's commercial pick-up. If I had a choice I would not be using the city's service either, but I do not have that luxury as a common citizen.

Within your "Opinion" you ask us to keep in perspective state and federal mandates that are heaped upon local governments. Please, be more specific so that we common citizens can understand which governmental body to direct our hateful animosity towards. If it is House Bill 530 of which you speak, then our animosity should be directed to the Cape Girardeau City Council as this bill would not pass judicial review, because the Missouri Constitution "prohibits state expansion of local responsibility without state funding." The City of Cape Girardeau has started compliance without contesting this bill in our courts.

Also, in your "Opinion" you state that "municipal officials have acted diligently...". To this statement I cry foul and throw down a yellow flag. This administration has used up their credulity with me in getting the water system purchased. When presented to the council the first time Mr. Stoverink stated that the city could run at current rates until federal mandates would require a 3 percent increase in 1993. When the council passed the new water system ordinance recently it had a 5 percent increase within it. Before that, sections of the water system were cut out to show the citizen the condition of the current water system, but these were sanded and painted to make them look better than they were.

How can the citizens trust the figures of the present administration's budget when these things are allowed to happen by the city council?

Let the citizens see each city disbursement by the city as was done in the past and I think that new office furniture for the water treatment plant would not be so readily purchased by the city.

The time is right for a Citizens Against Tax Increases Organization to be formed and to hold our local government in check, because if we can not do this locally how are we ever going to control state or federal spending. We must start in our back yard.

Fellow Citizens, get involved, be at the city council meeting on June 15, 1992, and let your voices be raised in protest to the tax increases.

Lawrence (Larry) Godfrey

Cape Girardeau