<VV> Re: Libraries--no Corvair content

[Gary Swiatowy]

A couple years ago.
The Erie County executive proposed 2 budgets,
a Red budget that meant closing county parks, libraries, and funding for 
cultural institutions including the zoo.
Not to mention cutting the Sheriff's department by half.
Then there was a Green budget where everything will grow and flourish, but 
included an unprecedented increase in taxes and would have included the 
highest sales tax rate in the country.

Then something unique happened................
The local news teams took on the county government.
Daily there were exposes on how the county government was wasting 
money.........
Everything from a driver making $85,000 a year, to bloated staffs full of 
patronage jobs...........

End result...........
loss of some libraries
A county legislature that is powerless because now that there is a state 
mandated control board to oversee spending.
and plenty of other cuts.............but nowhere near enough.
Taxes still keep going up.

Yes, governments threaten to take away...........to get their way!

Gary Swiatowy

> From: "Lonny Clark" <lclarkpdx at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: <VV> April commuique -- Libraries--no Corvair content
> To: "Chris & Bill Strickland" <lechevrier at earthlink.net>
>
> That's typical government thinking. When the budget cuts come, they don't
> get rid of the things that should go first. They get rid of the things 
> that
> they think the public want, so the tax increase they want in the next
> election passes. In Portland they try to scare the public into a budget
> increase by letting criminals out of jail. No room for them with the 
> current
> budget, they say. And yet there is a brand new jail (it's called Wapato, 
> if
> you want to look it up) finished in 2004 at a cost of 58 million dollars
> that has never held a prisoner. Multnomah county says they can't afford to
> open it, they already have hundreds of cells closed that they can't afford
> to put prisoners into. Whose flim-flam job was that?
>
> Jackson county is suffering the same fate as the rest of the southern 
> Oregon
> counties, they thought that the federal government was just going to keep
> paying them a stipend for the loss of free and cheap access to the logs in
> federal forest land.  Did they think the free money was bottomless? They
> never planned for the possibility that  they would stop getting that 
> money,
> even though there was an end date on it when they started getting it. And
> don't expect any new tax levies to pass, there are too many people on 
> fixed
> income down there. Retirees from California have completely taken over my
> hometown, and for the most part they don't need schools and libraries. 
> They
> need Wal-Mart though...
>
> Lonny
>
> On 4/16/07, Chris & Bill Strickland <lechevrier at earthlink.net> wrote:
>>
>> > > 3. I know people who don't have computers either. They can go to
>> the library, put in their ID and member number and download a copy if
>> they don't want a computer in the house, or just don't want to fiddle
>> with them. < <
>>
>> And then there are those enlightened places like Jackson County, Oregon
>> (home of the popular Oregon Shakespearean Festival), where one would
>> expect a high degree of literacy -- these are the recent headlines (loss
>> of funding options):
>>
>>
>>       Library staffs, users and supporters solemnly prepare for Friday's
>>       closing of the entire 15-branch system
>>
>>
>> http://www.mailtribune.com/archive/2007/0401/local/stories/libraryfinaldays.htm
>>
>> It is less than wise to assume folks have computers, libraries, and
>> better-than-dial-up service. It might work as an opt-in option for those
>> that would want an online Communiqué, but are there really enough of
>> those folks to warrant the effort? Twelve noisy people don't a CORSA
>> make.  Raise your hands ...
>>
>> Personally, I like having those old glossy high end Communiqués from
>> thirty years ago, if just to reminisce over -- probably wouldn't have
>> those if they were online back then.
>>
>> Bill Strickland
>> _
>>
>
>
> ------------------------------