Letter to the Editor

Many reasons to oppose proposed sales tax

Thursday, January 5, 2012

To the editor:

This letter is about the stealing of $3.2 million of the citizens' money and forcing the citizens to replace the money through a sales tax. To clear the air, stealing is defined by very smart people as "to take or appropriate without right or consent and with the intent to keep or make use. Robbery, theft."

Studies have been performed, which indicate that 62 percent of the citizens of Blytheville live in poverty. These facts are mentioned for a purpose. Following are arguments against the sales tax:

-- Statistics indicate that Blytheville government can pass any tax the leadership desires. Look at the past history whereas the mayor made statements such as "If you don't pass the sales tax, it will be added to your water bill" Isn't this called coercion? What effect does this type of language have on city employees? Don't you realize that this is an open threat to all employees and citizens?

-- Restricting voter turnout by having only one polling place when the law requires a polling place for each ward.

-- Changing language of ordinances several times, i.e. heritage facility, last referendum, 566 voters out of an approximate 9,581 eligible voters.

-- No efforts to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse in government. The city budget keeps increasing, while the population keeps decreasing. Why is city government waiting on the state and federal government to find out what happened to the $3.2 million? The city has a police department, a CPA, bookkeepers, free access to every worker and nook in the entire city, yet, we have no idea as to what happened to $3.2 million and are spending tremendous efforts to pass another tax to bail out a seemingly possible one or a group of thief's (city officials and workers) according to the definition in the introduction paragraph.

There appears to be no efforts expended toward cutting back on expenditures so as to find sufficient funds within the city operations to pay off the debt to the federal government. A million dollar budget for parks and recreation without any thoughts of using that money for paying off a debt. A near $3 million budget for the police department, an increase over past years while the city population decreased 2,652 citizens in the past 10 years. The same situation exists for the fire department, sanitation department and other functions of city government. It appears that there is only one way of raising money in Blytheville, and that is to raise taxes. Do not be misled to think that the citizens don't realize this mistreatment. They are leaving this city by droves, and who can blame them?

The question remains "what happened to the $3.2 million? It has been missing nine months since notification. Please make an effort to find out.

Edward Ray Clouse
Blytheville