Even though he has not been on the scene in the Salisbury City Council’s meetings for several months, Mr. Comegys’ health concerns have not stopped him from doing the Democrat thing – trying to get more of our money into the public trough. As the head of the Maryland Municipal League he has issued a call to the mayors and CEO’s of its municipality members to push the Maryland Legislature for greater authority to impose additional taxes with another name – like, but in addition to the stormwater “fee” that Ireton wants and that new building inspection “fee” that he has requested.
And before you can say “tax cap” there’s a Resolution request from Ireton to the City Council for a plea to the Maryland General Assembly “to provide more diverse revenue raising authority to municipalities,” clever language to mask the purpose by avoiding the words “fees” and “taxes”.
You may recall that a few years back, Comegys and his City Council sidekick then, Mikey Dunn, wanted to impose a “food tax” that resulted on public outcry and was abandoned. Comegys can’t be trusted not to tax and fee us to the poorhouse with Ireton’s willing and eager assistance despite their differences on other matters. On “tax & spend” these two career government employees are simpatico.
They know – based on what happened when Barrie Tilghman got Louise Smith, Comegys and Shanie Shields to push through a property tax increase several years ago -- that another one would result in revolt, so they have turned to new and higher fees and special charges to squeeze every cent out of City residents, developers and property owners. Have you seen your water and sewer bill lately – if not be sure to sit down before doing so (it’s going up, again, this year).
Salisbury residents would be wise to ask the General Assembly candidates in the upcoming election to state whether they would vote to give the City authority “to raise own-source revenues to reduce the reliance . . . on the property tax to fund municipal government services.” Despite the innocent sound of that phrase, guess where and from whom those “own-source revenues” would come from.
And don’t say that you were not warned in advance by this blog!
9 comments:
Joe:
Please keep an eye on this and thanks for pulling the rug back on the rodents.
That "local option tax" that Ireton and Comegys (and the City Council) want is actually a local sales tax, they just call it something else to fool the public.
When you do interviews with candidates, please ask them if they will support letting Salisbury and other towns tax us to death like Ireton and Bubba want to do.
It passed last night, but Bubba and Campbell were absent.
Looks like Bubba still wants that "food" -- now called "restaurant" -- tax, along with Ireton, Cohen, Smith and Shields (and probabbly Campbell, too).
Joe:
I would warn all City of Salisbury residents - to sell ASAP and start exiting the City.
Between the Waste Water Treatment plant and crime plagued neighborhoods - there is no good to become of this mess nor is there a short term fix.
In reality - the MD National Guard ought to be called in to augment the City Police force. I have never witnessed so many violent crimes in my entire tenure as a lifelong resident.
Snake Plissken didn't have it this bad in his exodus from NY.
1:03pm I agree. It is time to get out of Salisbury. It has been run into the ground. Starting with Bar Room Barry Tilgman and continuing on thru our pathetic cast of light weights. This is not a made for TV movie...this will not magically turn around. Roll up your tent and get out because it will get worse.
This may seem to be a local phenomena, but its not. Across the state, towns and cities are annexing more land (for a larger tax base), raising taxes, fees, fines, creating more new taxes, fees, and fines, levy's, etc. You can rest assured that the police will be ramping up the "serve and protect" aspect of law enforcement in the form of "agressive driving" campaigns and the related tickets and fines. This is the politician's modus operandi --- get elected, spend money, develop and implement new programs to show you are an "effective leader", raise taxes. If you move, then move out of state. Where will the state get all the money it will need to meet the soon-to-be federal mandates on health care reform? The state CAN'T print money like the federal government, so what to do?? There are only 2 basic methods to cope -- 1) raise revenue 2) cut spending. How many politicians do YOU know that cut spending? Riiiiigght.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, 11:49. Don't put this bull on Debbie Campbell and Terry Cohen. I watched last night and Cohen pointed out a lot of this wouldn't fly. She was voting for flexibility since we are getting screwed by the state right now.
She and Debbie Campbell have fought their butts off to get common sense into our government (without much support from many of you either).
Cohen had it right last night. You can charge a fee to those who create the need for a service or you can tax everybody for it.
Campbell and Cohen are the best thing to happen to our city government in the last 6 years. Don't knock 'em!
Something to think about... The Centre at Salisbury is 20 years old, it's starting to decay, and vacancies are starting to appear. In the next five years or so when financing comes back, someone will build a new mall in tax-free, business friendly Delmar. Then Salisbury's gonna have two empty mall sites.
Imclain:
What about the tax base swallowed up by the college , hospital & churches you've never heard of before. You gotta get someone in those new "bases" for this to be any help. If they remain empty, so will we.
In my opinion the college doesn't put forth much in the way of assistance...
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