Last night’s Escambia County Commission meeting had State Rep. Dave Murzin in attendance as the County Administrator George Touart and the Commissioners danced around how they will deal with reduced revenues if the state legislature rolls back tax rates (County blasts legislator).
It gave Com. Mike Whitehead and Touart an opportunity to vent their frustrations.
Hate to say, “I told you so, ” but I warned Touart and the Commission that they should have either rolled back the tax rate in 2006 or, at least, focused on the real issues facing the county.
My Outtakes – Boiling Point– (in Sept. 28, 2006 issue):
We have these tremendous needs and a county budget that doesn’t address any of them. And what’s worse is that none of the media – except for the Independent News – dared to question the budget allocations. Few citizens protested at the hearings.
On Sept. 21, the Escambia County Commission refused to modify the budget for our health, housing or poverty needs and voted to keep paying for their pet projects with the biggest property tax revenue increase in the history of Escambia County.
If they weren’t going to address health and human service needs, then the county commission could have at least rolled back the millage rate as other county commissions have done across the state.”
By not paying attention the public and only worrying about the needs of the government bureaucracy, Touart and Whitehead created this mess. They killed the Golden Goose and now finally see that they aren’t any more golden eggs.