Government must do better before getting more taxes

Submitted by David Keister
Posted 9/29/20

Dear Editor:

So, the county has slipped in the 1% sales tax again on the ballot without much advertising and justification. Maybe because of COVID we would not notice as much. Every other parts of …

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Government must do better before getting more taxes

Posted

Dear Editor:

So, the county has slipped in the 1% sales tax again on the ballot without much advertising and justification. Maybe because of COVID we would not notice as much. Every other parts of our lives have changed this year why not here.

To me, this seems like “piling on.” They did not tie it to a time frame or infrastructure, this is permanent. The last time we approved a 1% increase it was for roads and bridges projects like the South Fork project. Been up there yet?

Beautiful road. The problem is, not well known, our 1% fund went to a project that ended up nine months and millions of dollars over budget for a highway that serves a handful of commercial ranches and big dollar outfitters and the road ends up going nowhere. The benefit to most of the people of Park County is extremely minimal; meaning us, the residents who they want to vote this increase in.

Think of the dirt streets and small roads in Park County that could have been fixed, at least chip sealed like they do in Cody every few years, just with the overrun from the South Fork project (millions of dollars — the county still has not released how much).

And the tiny number “1%” in and of itself is misleading. We have a 4% sales tax now. An increase to 5% is a 25% permanent tax increase!

This past year, if nothing else, has shown us how little government can be trusted. They need to do much, much better in my book before I give them any more money.

David Keister

Powell

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