I will say this, every city, regardless of party control or affiliation, has areas in its budget that are abused and wasteful. For example. The nearest town to us a couple years ago, paid 1 MILLION dollars for a lighted sign with the name of the town on it. They then placed it near the interstate exit ramp. They completely ignored or didn’t think about the exit ramp changes that were announced 2 years PRIOR to the city ordering the sign. When DoT updated the ramp, the sign is completely blocked from view. Oh and the signs lights only worked for about 6 weeks. And to make matters even better, the city is paying for the next 25 years, a $275,000 maintenance fee to the sign company, an out of state company, for a once a year cleaning. But it doesn’t include electrical or other repairs. So far, the city has wasted nearly 2 million dollars on this damn thing. And get this, they can’t move it? Why because of the contract from the sign company.
But now they can’t afford the $650,000 to repair the sidewalks in town that have needed it for decades, so they want to expand the city limited and annex a 200 house community south of town. They claim it’s for industrial growth but everyone knows it’s to cover their asses on that sign and other budgetary crap. Property taxes would go from the county’s .86 percent to the city’s 2.38 percent