Wicomico County Executive Rick Pollitt went on the road this morning to promote his latest album - “Ditch the Cap”. Included were such soon to be hits as:
- “I Ain’t Got Enough of Yo’ Money to Spend”
- “Them Bureaucrat Blues”
- “Mo’ Money, Mo’ Money, Mo’ Money”
Singing harmony was Councilman Bill McCain.
The show is scheduled to be broadcast on PAC-14 later this week.
32 comments:
The revenue cap is a long term issue...it is not going to address the fiscal 2009 and 2010 ....these guys needs to get serious about the near term deficits and take meaningful actions that will deal with those shortfalls....and in doing so ,establish some credibility with taxpayers.
Would be funny if it wasn't so close to the truth.
He needs to do something about the planning and zoneing dept., somebody has to be in bed with someone over there. They haven't cut or sacificed anything , a whole
lot less building going on now or is it my imagination!
Pollitt & McCain are trying to beat out Phil Tilghman and Pretl as the two most dangerous persons in the County.
Look what he did in Fruitland, you can't even afford to turn your water on its so expensive, not to mention all the other fees.
Go back into your contemplation room Rick and try again.
He never met a tax that he did not like.
As a business owner I want to make capitol expenditures but in this economic climate we have to learn to as efficient as possible with what we have. If Mr.Pollitt spent as much time trying to make the county departments more efficient as he did crying about the revenue cap maybe somethings would get accomplished. Mr.Pollitt is spending to much time drinking the same Obama Kool aid as Ireton and O'Mally.Its clear that government spending is not going to turn the economy around.
Pollitt started right off out of the shoot spending money and should have started in the first of his term cutting cost. I voted for the cap because of actions like his to start with. Agreed the cap is somewhat low however our elected officials have done nothing to cut cost and prove this county needs more revenue. Until some honest to goodness cuts are made there is no way this cap should be lifted. The economic times we are in now are proof cuts need to be made and NOW. Pollitt has made changes to this county many are not aware of that are going to cost us dearly for many years after he is gone from office which cannot be soon enough.
Rick: Get rid of your high paid assistants such as Matt Creamer. Just how many of these people do you need? You knew this county was under a cap when you took the job. If you can.t make the cuts necessary to do your job, maybe you should step aside and let someone else take this position.
KEEP the CAP get rid of RICK.
4:39
Couldn't have said it better myself.
I saw desperation in their eyes this morning.
I can't understand why Rick isn't talking shop but instead puts an assistant financial officer there to speak for this situation. Makes no sense to me.
Why do all county dept. heads have take home cars save the money leave them at work...
This county needs to take some lessons from the private sector as far as expenses go. Take home cars are a start reduce the amount of cars going home thus reduce cost. For the ones considered a must to take home give them a hybird and save more on fuel as well. Three head riding around sleeping all day in a county roads truck is not necessary either. Some of the blame needs to be back on the citizens as well for creating an executive position thus creating quite a few more positions that got shuttled in under the radar but are now costing the county dearly. Repealing the tax cap is not a good ideal until there is a whole lot more accountability than we have right now.
Where is Peterson? I haven't seen her in weeks. Is this new guy that was with Rick this morning her replacement? She has needed to go for a long time.
DITCH THE CAP, Mr. Pollitt.
We the people voted for a new form of government in hopes that things would change. It is unfortunate that Mr. Pollitt chose to not make the necessary changes to make the differences that we were wanting. So now, it is time for Mr. Pollitt to find another job and let the people try to get it right again. Anyone who thinks they know how to run this gov't, please register to run for the office. We are still wanting change.......Unless you are willing to make changes, forget about it.
Please don't disparage dogs and ponies. This is more a pig and porkulus show.
I was recently told that Wicomico County has had a 30% reduction in revenue over the last four years, because of the cap. The state has let it be known that they are finished carrying the tax cap counties on their back, and they will soon be cutting large amounts of current state funding to those counties. If you think we can solve or delay this by eliminating take home cars, you are the ones drinking the Kool-aid. The repeal of the tax cap will take 3-5 years, but only if we start now!
Keep the Cap & ditch Fineran!
yep i agree keep the cap get rid of Ricky boy and others on his band wagon! How funny is it that the city & county is broke when the time to talk of raising taxes or lifting the rev cap but they can always pull the money out of the air when it comes to something they want....come election time fire the lot of them....
5:52~Wait until this next year.....A$$ wipe should feel desperation.
Typical democrat, maybe he can get a job in the Obama or O'Malley administration. Birds of a feather stick togeather.
I bet given 6 months and County Executive Powers! A citizen such as myself paying county property taxes in excess of $1700 per MONTH could cut out enough fat to meet any budget ricky has faced in this "crisis" 1. Fire Finneran,Peterson and Kramer 2. Call the governor tell him next contract go a round at board of ed the citizens get to confront the $ pit
3.take anyone at the landfill with any wrong doing during the joke of a investigation/trial and fire them thieves get FIRED! Tell rick drive his own damn car and the same goes for the other 6 i know of that drive more on personal time than taxpayer time 4. put a no questions asked bounty on reporting waste at board of ed/school system whistle blower style and that's just to start! 5. Immediately end the string of malfeasance in office leaders at WCDC i personally have first hand knowledge that makes the thrift travel inn look like a church compared to WCDC and it's leadership. I could go on, but it's not my blog Joe!
Do all the whistle blowing and fat trimming you want, but it will not come close to the $12 mil. deficit that we will have next year. Do not stay focused on these distractions. You will only lose more time, and be in a deeper hole until the cap is repeal. Most importantly, the repeal is a length process, and you will have the time to make some cuts. But they will only be a drop in the bucket. We must start the repeal process now.
Everyone will be singing a different tune when their friends in the County lose their jobs next year and you lose service you take for granted. I guess that is what you all want.
4:35 and 11:49 ...Matt Creamer does not work for Rick Pollitt....he works for the County Council. Ted Shea is Rick's Administrative Director.
Anonymous 3:29 PM said...
"He needs to do something about the planning and zoneing dept., somebody has to be in bed with someone over there. They haven't cut or sacificed anything , a whole
lot less building going on now or is it my imagination!"
I seriously doubt that you know what Planning and Zoning does...Just because there is a reduction in building does not mean that P&Z doesn't have any work to do. In fact the only involvement that P&Z has in regards to building is subdivision review-have you ever even done a subdivision review? Even in heavy developing times, it's not that time consuming. I think that you automatically assume that P&Z does permitting and building inspections-not the case at all. Salisbury Department of Building, Permitting and Inspections and Wicomico County Public Works handle all the permitting and inspections-NOT PLANNING AND ZONING. Do you even know what P&Z does? Have you ever realized that they administer and enforce the Zoning Codes for Wicomico County and Salisbury, develop the City AND County Comprehensive Plans, develop transportation plans, admister and enforce all the environmental programs (ie: critical area, forest conservation, stream buffers, wetland regulations, etc), Staff the Salisbury-Wicomico Planning and Zoning Commission, Staff the City Council, Staff the County Council, Staff the Salisbury Board of Zoning Appeals, Staff the Wicomico County Board of Zoning appeals, Administer and enforce housing grants and programs, develop and maintain the City and County's Geography Information Systems, and a whole lot more! And by that list of tasks, you can probably figure out that P&Z works for the City AND the County-what other departments do that? NONE! But no, your imagination is not fooling you, there isn't a whole lot of development going on but it certainly doesn't mean that it has a considerable affect on the P&Z work load-in fact, it can create more work since times like these allow the staff to concentrate on enhancing future regulations and requirements. P&Z HAS made cuts and HAS made sacrifices-all departments were required to make cuts and have done so. Get your facts straight before you sound stupid and ignorant on the blogs!
Go look at the Original Adopted Budget for this year and figure in the grant money and Salisbury's contribution for P&Z services-Compare it to other departments and you'll change your tune.
Here's an example for you:
P&Z
Salaries - $798,443
Grant Programs - ($69,705)
Salisbury Contract - ($150,000)
Total - $578,738
Total Employees - /15
Average Salary - $38,582
Public Works
Salaries - $517,288
Grant Programs - ($0.00)
Total - $517,288
Total Employees - /13
Average Salary - $39,791
Now who costs the County more per employee? If you're worried about slack work loads then you need to look at the departments that are actually affected by reduced building activity. Also keep in mind that public works doesn't even have a professional engineer on staff-so you're paying higher salaries for less qualified employees.
Anonymous 5:55 PM
"Why do all county dept. heads have take home cars save the money leave them at work..."
Again, get the facts straight before you open your mouth-not all department heads get take home vehicles
Nice political propaganda.
If there is anyone to blame for the counties financial woes. It is the County Council. They were in place long before Big Rick took over. They along with Voice Matt Craemer, Carl Peterson took this county for a huge ride.
Where is Don Ciffin these days. I think he the hell out of Salisbury. Where is Peterson ? He got the hell out of Wicomico as well. yet all these people stated they were building a better place to live and raise a family. LOL !!
That is why they rand as soon as they could.
Why are they not here now ?? We all the answer to that question.
One only has to look as far as the consideration the County Council the the Question "A". 18,000 plus voted for it. Pollit was the only one that listened to my vote !!
The rest snubbed the voters. I will never have faith in them again. We put them there lets take em out. Dont let them play the blame game on Pollitt.
Anon 1834 -
That was lovely. If half of it were true you might have actually said something meaningful.
Don Coffin is alive, well, and living in Wicomico County. You're comments regarding Question A are almost interesting as well. The bill the FOP wanted would have ceded all budgetary authority to the Executive and the FOP's arbitrator. Is that really what you want?
I'll admit that I don't know who Carl Peterson is or where he lives now. However, the last time I checked, Matt Creamer has never held elective office. Therefore, it would be a little difficult to blame him for fiscal matters.
The bottom line is fairly simple. We have had a revenue cap in place for several years and Rick Pollitt has refused to re-structure the county government to deal with the cap. Now he proposes to strip the county of every contingency and reserve fund so that he can repeal the cap and raise taxes.
When Rick takes the WCBOE to task and re-structures THEN I'll applaud his actions.
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