The following is an excerpt from my correspondence with a Rochester City Council member regarding the controversial monthly "dinner meetings" with city adminstrators and others.
Thank you for your willingness to engage me in this debate. None of your City Council colleagues have seen it fit to do so as of yet. I am particularly disappointed that Amy Blenker, "my" councilperson, has chosen not to address my concerns. Or maybe you've been designated as the point person on this. Regardless, it is encouraging to have any kind of response from an elected official.
Please do not attribute the lack of public participation in your budget deliberations as apathy. I know how busy I am with my family, job, and church commitments. December is arguably the worst possible time to hold such meetings and expect taxpayers, specially business owners, to participate in the process. By the way, the City Council, School Board and County Board all voted their tax increases the week before Christmas. What's with that?
The problem may not be apathy, as you diagnosed it, but trust. I know I used to trust elected officials to look out for my best interests. I was content to let them sift throut the endless pages of numbing budget numbers. No longer. Particularly when said elected officials socialize with those presenting and advocating the numbing budget numbers.
Human nature being what it is, forgive me for suspecting that having a personal relationship and socializing regularly with those presenting budget requests would make it difficult to be more objective when examining those requests. I trust the people with whom I choose to socialize. Barring any glaring character defects or abhorrent behavior, I take wthat what they tell me as God's honest truth, suspend judment and assume the best.
What I would like to see is a certain professional detatchment between elected officials and administrators. A Fourth of July picnic get-together or a Christmas, I mean Holiday Party should suffice to meet any socialization needs the two groups have. The estimated yearly $2,000-$3,000 cost of the cozy dinners may seem like "a pretty small amount" when spread over the year, as Mayor Brede said, but what has been the cost over the "many, many" years this "tradition" has taken place? It is my understanding that the mayor's "official city account" is financed with taxpayer money, is it not?
Those are my thoughts regarding these monthly dinner meetings. What I am concerned about is that the ordinary taxpayer on a fixed income and the small business owner trying to meet payroll do not have the time, disposition, or confidence to attend such meetings/dinners/social gatherings (What are they anyway?). They don't have the access that city administrators enjoy. Far from the eyes, far from the heart.
Those of us who object to the ever increasing levels of taxation imposed by our local government officials don't do so based on the cost of essential services such as law enforcement and snowplowing as suggested by John Trolander's December 14, 2005, letter to the Post-Bulletin. People would not object to paying taxes if it actually meant letting go of that "extra" $5 dollar bill, as he put it. Taxpayers, particularly people on fixed incomes and small business owners, are getting ever closer to being taxed out of their homes and businesses.
During the city counciI's Truth-in-Taxation hearing, a long time Rochester business owner, who said he had never attended such hearings before, felt compelled to express his concerns this time. His proposed taxes then would have meant an "extra" $100 bill EVERY WEEK for the coming year. One of my co-worker's taxes was slated to go up by 63%. Her neighbor's school district portion of the tax burden would be $3,000. That's SIX HUNDRED "extra" $5 bills!
Believe me when I say I would rather not attend your meetings and write these emails. I have plenty to keep me busy. I feel compelled to do so, however. I have lost trust. I believe local government officials need to be held accountable now more than ever. Shifting blame to higher levels of government doesn't pass muster anymore.
I have too many friends and acquaintances who are feeling the pinch from your tax increases and they are worried. I sympathize with their plight rather than with the needs, real or perceived, of the bureaucracy. Those beleaguered taxpayers are the people with whom I socialize.
I will leave you with Julie Tuffs' words as printed in today's letters to the editor section of the Rochester Post-Bulletin: " We are the ones who elected [Government officials]. It's our responsibility to keep an eye on how they are doing their jobs. When you hire someone to do work for you, don't you check the job out before paying that person? "
Sincerely and Respectfully,
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