Here’s what I simply don’t get regarding the budget shortfall, and the recently expressed plans by our county and city officials to find a means of saving the $1 million needed in order to continue providing key services to our community.
The current plan as stated in recent articles is to cut spending by city and county employees, implement multiple small cost-saving measures, reduce services and hours, and possibly tax the heck out of one of our county’s most reliable income providers in recent years, the rapidly growing marijuana industry.
It seems that all of these measures only further destabilize our ability to provide key services to our county, reduce our ability to handle some much needed and important infrastructure improvements and damage our ability to help small businesses grow by taxing one of our few bright financial sources into oblivion.
It has been stated that by doing all this, we still may not get to that million dollar mark.
My big question is why then are the commissioners and decision-makers still going ahead with the planned $1.1 million environmental assessment that was only needed if we were going to build the extravagantly expensive new airport on the north side?
This option was overwhelmingly voted down in November by our county, and yet the commissioners are proceeding ahead with this step as though we never sent them a resounding no vote on this option.
By simply cutting this one unnecessary expense, rather than this planned slow death by a thousand cuts approach, we would have ample available funds to make up for the million dollar shortfall.
Please write and email your commissioners and planners if this makes as little sense to you as it does to me.
Steve Thibodeaux
Ignacio
