At the Hickory City Council meeting, September 15th, we saw a clear example of the poor decision making process that too often occurs here. On an impulse the Mayor stated that he wanted a new sign with the City’s newly designed logo placed at the intersection of Tate Blvd and LR Blvd. The road will be re-opened in October and Mr. Wright, enthusiastically supported by Mrs. Patton, decided on a whim that the sign would be pretty and make a splash.
The logo was designed as part of the Wayfinding Program that was discussed and voted on earlier in the year. At that time, when the $73,500 for the design was approved, the plan was that the signs would be purchased in phases. The total cost of City wide signage will be several hundred thousand dollars and was to be phased in over a number of years as funds were available and one would assume that there would be some logical progression to it. Now it seems that we won’t worry about the budget or what the priorities for sign placement are, but, whenever the mood strikes the Mayor or Council we’ll put a sign up somewhere. And with an election coming up I guess they are feeling festive.
Our tax base is eroding, few building permits are being issued, housing values are stagnant, which means we are headed for budget problems soon. Should we be impulse spending now? And is this the professional, methodical way we expect our City finances to be handled? Some would say it’s only $6,100 and we can afford it. That’s not the point. The point is money is tight now and we need to be good stewards of what we have. Impulse spending is not wise for family budgets and it is poor public policy. If tax rates have to be raised to pay the City’s bills, Mr. Wright and Mrs. Patton’s impulse spending will only make a tough situation worse. The taxpayers deserve better.
