Saundra McDavid

In an unfortunate decision last night the City of Eagle choose to pad its own savings account by taking money out of the pockets of its citizens.  The people of Eagle will see a levy rate increase on their property tax this year; a year where so many of us are struggling to make ends meet.  The reason for this; the City wanted more of a cushion for the 2011 budget.  At the end of the four hour long debate, there was a workable solution on the table:  instead of a $700,000 cushion, lower it to the actual amount needed to pay the first quarter expenses for the 2011 fiscal year, which is $350,000.  Had that been agreed upon, there would have not been a tax increase.  However the City wanted more.  Council President Michael Huffaker and Bandy appointee Jeanne Jackson-Heim voted to increase the tax, while Al Shoushtarian and Norm Semanko voted against it. Mayor Phil Bandy cast the tie breaking vote in favor of the tax increase.

The latest trend in politics is to call a tax an “investment” and Mayor Bandy’s statement, “…the Citizens of Eagle are getting a tremendous bargain based upon [sic] amount of property taxes you are investing in your community” is a line right out of the DNC playbook. (www.cityofeagle.com, 9/4/2009)   We are hearing politicians every day in the news defending raising taxes and government spending by using the term “investing.”  And these same politics and political speak have found their way into Eagle, with Mayor Bandy recently taking 20 paragraphs on the front page of the city’s website defending his desire to increase taxes on the people of Eagle.  Add Councilwoman Jeanne Jackson-Heim’s reason for raising taxes “because our current taxes are ‘peanuts’ compared to other cities,” and we have an alarming situation in Eagle City Hall.

Last night Mayor Bandy accused Councilman Semanko of being “irrational” in his desire to help the people of Eagle by not raising taxes; asking Semanko “why are we cutting taxes just for the sake of cutting taxes?” Jackson-Heim offered insight into this bureaucratic mindset at city hall by repeatedly referring to the taxes we pay as “revenue” to the city.  She justified the tax increase because she wanted to maintain the “revenue” into the city.   When the rest of us experience a decrease in revenue, we make the hard decisions to cut our expenses.  When revenue falls even more, we make further cuts.  Not so at Eagle City Hall.  When revenue falls our city leaders raise taxes to try to maintain their spending level.

Recently, I heard a man walking out of a grocery store speaking on his cell phone and proudly proclaiming that he was able to put food on his table that week.  Many of us are in this same situation; doing what we can to scale back our budgets to match our reduction in income.  It is wrong for a politician to take money away from the people in his or her community, when those people are struggling just to keep up the basic necessities of food, water and shelter.

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