On the Mission tax rate increase

Last month our ex-mayor placed a large and assumingly very expensive ad in Progress Times criticizing the current administration for raising the property tax a very small amount.

Thinking back, hindsight is always better, I realized my voting for him and his agendas was the cause of this current increase. I should have realized that a city that doubled its population in 20 years should not have been able to keep taxes the same let alone reduce them.

To accomplish tax reduction employees were not replaced when they quit or retired to the point that the city has a smaller staff now than they did 20 years ago. We are still on the same brush pick up schedule that we were in the past even though hundreds of trees have been added and thousands have matured and are needing more trimming.

The past flooding has shown the inadequacy of any patch jobs done to our drainage system. Funds earmarked for water system, sewer and drainage were spent elsewhere but, we have nice tennis courts, soccer fields, swimming pools and an unused “event center”.

Personally, I will be more than happy to forego one beer a week to help my adopted city meet the real needs of its citizens.
-Ned Sheats

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