The Martin Chronicles can only imagine that the Tea Partiers, Liberty Leaguers, Home Schoolers, Bible Thumpers and all the other "Don't Tread On Me" flag-waving, tri-cornered hat-wearing, government-hating fanatics were aghast when Mike Pope revealed the "Martin/Pope Borrow, Tax and Spend Road Plan" proposal at last Wednesday night's council "infight". The worst of all three worlds. We can also only speculate that the other nimrods on Pope's floundering finance committee provided their "valuable" input at their most recent secret meeting. This brilliant idea may have been concocted by just Martin and Pope.
So what is the gist of the plan? Well, Mayor Martin and Councilman Pope strongly support the idea of borrowing $500,000 (not even enough to fund one year of the City Engineer's cost forecasts), and paying it back over ten years by locking in the maximum property tax increase allowed by law each year over that same time period. That represents a property tax increase of approximately 60%.
Martin and Pope failed to explain how they would fund year two of their plan. Or year three. Or year four. Or year five Or year six. Okay, we know. Most of our readers are very bright. We are sure they understand that the "Martin/Pope Borrow, Tax and Spend Road Plan" is yet another prescription for financial disaster. And Martin has already provided an overdose of those prescriptions to the City's budget. Why else would he be constantly fretting about losing his wife's (?) house?
What has created the supposed need for the "Martin/Pope Borrow, Tax and Spend Road Plan"? That one is easy to answer. It is the fault of the two authors of this shocking proposal.
First, Mike Pope. The guy who has spent the last five years perpetually attacking the UNFAIR $40 PER CAR STICKER TAX. Hey, we actually agree with Pope that the UNFAIR STICKER TAX should be done away with. The only difference is that The Martin Chronicles has suggested several logical alternatives. Pope has not. All Pope has done is poison the well and then asked everyone to gather around for a drink.
Then "The Little CEO". In 2010, Martin campaigns on the false promise to repeal the UNFAIR $40 PER CAR STICKER TAX. Then he sends the collection of the UNFAIR STICKER TAX to Boss Arlinghaus' County Court House just in time for Arlinghaus to layer on his own $35 PER CAR UNFAIR STICKER TAX. Much like everything else Martin has championed over these past sixteen horrific months, this has turned into an unqualified disaster.
Martin and Pope also failed to explain how they would fund the other rising costs every City government must face. Rising retirement costs. Rising cost of dispatch services. Rising cost of fuel and energy. Rising cost of health care. You get the picture.
Maybe Martin's plan to lay off half of the City's employees will offset the other rising costs. Who needs City services anyway? But please, don't tell anybody about that. Remember, Martin was really hoping to keep that part of his plan a secret. Then those rascals at WCPO had to go ahead and report what he actually said!
