Attention

The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not represent our advertisers

Friday, February 01, 2008

Is Louise Smith the New Chair of the "Lynn Cathcart for Council Committee"?


As we have intimated several times, it is our belief that former Salisbury Councilwoman Lynn Cathcart is keeping her face before the public in order to challenge Councilwoman Debbie Campbell in 2009. After Monday night's performance we are left with the question of who is chairing her campaign committee. It seems to be Salisbury Council President Louise Smith.

Smith called Cathcart to comment on the proposed ordinance to budget additional overtime and repair dollars for the Salisbury Police Department. Cathcart came up and spoke for five minutes of so, but not about the ordinance. The closest Cathcart came was her preface that everyone knows that she supports our police. Yes, Lynn. We also know that you are in favor of puppies, small children and apple pie.

Cathcart then went on to encourage the council to support a tax differential for Salisbury taxpayers. A valid area of public discourse to be sure, but what did it have to do with the ordinance before the council at that particular time. If the speaker had not been one of Salisbury Mayor Barrie Tilghman's sycophants and the subject had turned to something like a tax cut the speaker would have surely been gaveled out of order by Smith. Yet more evidence that there are different rules for different people.

Smith doesn't think twice about interrupting or gaveling down councilmembers who don't agree with her, but if you are one the few who would agree with Tilghman if she said that the moon was made of green cheese ...

In addition to this display of gross partisanship on behalf of Smith, there were a couple of other problems with Cathcart's comments - they were grossly misleading. People like Cathcart (and Tilghman) talk about a tax differential, but that is not what they want. I support a tax differential - where a Salisbury taxpayer would pay a lower county property tax rate than one living in an unincorporated area. I support it strictly on principle, but realize that Wicomico County is not in the fiscal position to deliver one at this time.

What Cathcart (along with Councilman Gary Comegys, Tilghman, et al) advocate is for the county to make a payment to the city's coffers. There's a HUGE difference. With a tax differential, a Salisbury taxpayer would pay lower taxes. Under the Cathcart plan that same taxpayer would not receive a tax break, but the Tilghman administration would receive a multi-million dollar check to feed their bureaucracy with!

With Louise Smith, it's a two-fer! Break your own rules, and deceive the public while you're at it.

cross posted at Delmarva Dealings

Technorati Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Powered by ScribeFire.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Exactly! Need to keep a watchful eye on this as well as everything else. Can't wait to hear "the rest of the story" on the audit/budget fiasco.












C

Anonymous said...

ditto 5:23am!
remember a vote for cathcart would be like vote for clinton. you will GET BOTH OF THEM.

Anonymous said...

Just what the city needs, millions more to put in those new accounts that won't be reconciled, won't be posted to the general ledger, won't be reviewed by management. Where will it go? Will it go to the new cash account or will it go to the new investment account? Investments, should they be physical assets would have to appear in a depreciable account unless it's being handled by BPT and her band of thieves. Investments in a bank, stocks, bonds or anything that would generate interest would also have to be posted and reported to the IRS as income. So exactly what are the new investments found by Herb Geary? Are they depreciable or are they interest producing?

I hope Rick Pollitt is smart enough to not get caught up in Barries scheme. If there is to be a differential give it directly to the taxpaying citizens of the city. Reduce their portion of county taxes and tell Barrie, Lynn, Shanie, Gary and Louise to take a flying leap.

I've been meaning to ask Lynn if she got sick of those grandbabies she wanted to spend so much time with, already. Way to go Mom Mom.

Anonymous said...

You nailed this one exactly right, they're not looking for a tax differential for the taxpayers, they're looking for a payment into their own coffers. Another thing people miss is that a number of the "duplicated services" the City claims, are not actually duplicates. The City is notorious for setting up departments where they do very little work, but collect the money, then they turn the real work over to the county (think back to what they tried to do with the electrical board).