Late letter

The following letter arrived too late for publication in this week’s newspaper:

While the Citizens for Balanced Growth gloat over their victory, I hope they stop to remember the four city employees who face the New Year without jobs.

I find it ironic that many of the same people who wanted to retain Weatherwax are the same people who stand before the city council and bemoan the city’s fiscal irresponsibility.  To all those folks, welcome to the club - the club of the fiscally irresponsible!

When I moved here in 2001, the then city council bragged about not having raised taxes.  Meanwhile, the city’s infrastructure deteriorated.  (Had they made the decision to fix the roads back then it would have cost us a whole lot less money.)  We voted most of those folks out seeking council members who would make the hard decisions.  Unfortunately, we didn’t get what we wanted.  Instead, we now have a council that’s afraid to make the tough decisions; a council that abdicated its responsibilities by putting Weatherwax on the ballot.  Shame on them.  What’s next?  Are we going to vote for every single decision that this spineless council doesn’t want to make?

The Weatherwax vote was only advisory.  Ok, let’s keep SOME parts and sell others – reach some sort of compromise.  The city council needs to find its backbone and soon.  They have many hard and probably unpopular decisions to make.  If they can’t make them – then they should step aside.

Robert Stermer-Cox