Registerguard
The county board of commissioners voted 3-1 Wednesday to advance a plan to enact either in a sales tax or a business gross receipts tax to pay for public safety.
Anna Morrison, Fay Stewart and Bobby Green said they were merely advancing a generic plan to fix the system, until next week with the board will conduct a thorough examination of all the ways to pay for public safety.
Commissioner Peter Sorensen cast the only no vote.
Commissioner Bill Dwyer, was absent.
A 13-step set of decisions about the state of public safety will be discussed next Wednesday when the board is scheduled to meet. Topics will include how to improve and pay for improvements, including a retail sales tax, a business gross receipts tax, a personal income tax or a corporate income tax. the key word here is... tax
"In my judgment, the people of Lane County do not want a sales tax. [Finally someone gets it] in my view, it's not a good idea for us to be the first county in the state of Oregon to initiate a sales tax," said Sorensen, who is running for the Oregon governorship.
I have lost count how many times the people of Oregon had said no to a sales tax, and I will constantly vote no on any proposals to increase any taxes because the city and county's as well as a state have proven over and over again that they are unable to manage the money that they have and provide the services that we pay for.
If this measure is approved, I hope that the public will insist that we get the services that we are paying for. By this I mean, I want the police and sheriff to start responding to burglar alarms for starters, and I want to see patrols back in the neighborhoods instead of watching police sitting for hours on end running radar to try and raise money.
In other words, public safety means the safety of the public. And if I'm not mistaken, that is one of the requirements of the city charter.
6 comments:
Maybe if they pass it, some judge will rule that it's unconstitutional...
I think the only reason Sorenson voted against the plan is because he is actively running for governor and must be talking to the people in the area. They just don't get the fact that people are tapped out in Oregon. Instead of using all that "brain power" to come up with new tax schemes, they need to figure out how to dump the pet projects and the constant drain on resources providing services to all these people that don't belong here, and fund the public safety services we deserve. We need to put safety ahead of everything else, that's their job.
I'm sure that the revenue raised will go to worthy public safety programs. Like studies about "hate crimes" against transgendered people...
Dear Boze Nose-Your thoughts are good in theory but you know that no new tax will ever completely replace another tax. We need to fund the courts, jails, and police first from the general fund and then vote on taxes for all the other little projects. Make them justify the expense and convince the voters of the need. Everyone agrees we need to fund the safety issues, they shouldn't have to beg for money. Why did they spend hundreds of thousands to replace the entrance to the court house when the roof still leaks. Now they give 18 grand to help fund the Central Latino agency help illegals have better access to more public funded programs that they are not intitled to. It never ends. To think that this fund would not be deverted to other pet causes is naive because anything could be shoved under the umbrella of public safety, such as new toilets for transsexuals because they don't fell safe in the current ones. Just use your imagination.
an interesting fact about a sales tax. In addition to a state sales tax, the city and county is also allowed to add their own sales tax on top of the state sales tax.
At one time when it actually looked like a sales tax would be a reality, both Eugene in Lane County were talking about doing their own if the measure passed.
As far as taking a one tax to replace another tax of course that never happens.
if replacing one tax with another was the normal way of life, then why is Portland currently talking about adding an additional nine cents a gallon gas tax while at the same time talking about installing three different toll roads, a statewide GPS system installed in every car so they can charge a variable per mile Road fee, and the list goes on.
The main problem here in my opinion is that city and state governments think that we are an endless supply of money and when they run low on money all they have to do is just tap the supply.
The one good thing about the proposal is that the new tax would be dedicated to public safety and therefore could not be used for a new bi-lingual medical clinic or some such nonsense.
for those who have been in Eugene long enough to remember when the Hult Center was built for the Eugene elite, it was not long before they realized that it was not bringing in enough money to support itself so the Eugene city Council decided to become creative.
shortly after the opening of the Hult Center,We voted in favor of a Sheriff's levy and we were shocked to find out that the sheriff's office only receive 10% of their own levy. A large percent went to the Hult Center.
Of course, there was a public uproar. And a second levy was voted on with the promise that ALL the money would go to the Sheriff's Department.
That was another lie.
The moral of the story is that they have proven that they cannot be trusted that the money will go where they say it will.
they will do what they want to do and when they get caught, they will beg profusely for forgiveness but they still get to keep the money.
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