During City Council meetings you can often hear trains pass by just outside the meeting room. It's loud enough to stop the meeting temporarily. Sadly, this is not the only railroading going on. Tuesday night, Council is set to give $53000 to downtown interests. I can only assume Sally Fox will vote on this even though she has a downtown business, is a member of the Hickory Downtown Development Association, and has an obvious conflict of interest.
First, $50,000 is requested for the HDDA. While there is money for the Economic Development Association, which promotes the whole City, HDDA doesn't work for the whole community, just downtown. Personally I think the traditionally thought of boundaries of downtown aren't really accurate, 127 and some adjacent streets should be included as well, but this is not what they are talking about. And you can be sure that the Ridgeview area, which is downtown as well hasn't even been thought of. There is no review process for seeing that the taxpayer will get any value out of this other than a nebulous "downtown is good" slogan. There is no accountability. How about seeing if our sales tax revenues are increasing as a result of this so called investment. What did we get for last year's appropriation of money? Where is any accountabilty?
The next appropriation is $3,000 for the city to help to pay for vandalism by graffiti. I detest vandalism and would like to see them caught, but why is the City paying for a private business's costs in the name of appearance? The City does not buy me a sign or pay to clean my business. It's a shame when businesses have to bear unbudgeted costs but welcome to the business world. If we as a City are going to start insuring against damages from crimes, then we would have a line of business owners stretched around the block waiting for our reimbursement checks. We should not be like Washington DC and subsidize politically connected interests with taxpayer dollars. This is what led to the fiscal mess we have at the Federal level and creates a lot of the cynicism and disenfranchisement we have in this country today. The City should not be in the disaster insurance business or promote some selected businesses at the expense of others. I urge Council not to do this.
Here is a link of investments made by the City of Hickory in "Downtown Hickory" since 2002.
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Sunday, February 15, 2009
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6 comments:
I am going to call tomorrow to ask to address council on Tuesday night. I suggest that you do the same Harry. I just wish that we could get others to attend. I know that I am going to post this high and low and call everyone I know. It is time to take a stand.
Why wasn't Alderlady Hoyle asked what she thought about downtown in that article on Sunday.
It is time for Councilors Lail, Meisner, Seaver, and Hoyle to stand up to the cabal. It is time for accountability with our tax dollars. It is time to quit spoiling Mrs. Fox. She does not own this city!!!
Do you have to call ahead to address the council?
I really appreciate you posting this information. There should be more notification and communication on the issues and upcoming decisions facing the city and spending of our tax dollars.
I followed the links to the agenda on the city's website, but there wasn't an agenda for tomorrow's meeting. Where do you find out what's going to be discussed?
Here is the agenda, the computer seems to be back up this morning:
Hickory City Council Meeting Agenda 2/17/2009
Please do attend the meeting. If you attend the meeting then you will learn just what HDDA has accomplished for the City of Hickory and the Unifour area. Other cities, such as Morganton and Statesville actually run their own downtown programs directly and spend far more money to do it. Also, if you got your facts straight, you would learn this is not an appropriation but a reimbursement grant.
Hey, we are all willing to listen; but facts straight doesn't necessarily mean sipping the Kool-Aid. Wouldn't you agree?
Check out the blog. You will see that I have been doing more than perusing local subjects.
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