A Nickel’s Worth of Free Advice for Huntington Mayor Updike

By Jeff Pruitt of Fortwaynepolitics.com

When the JG’s Tracy Warner comes to talk austerity measures for your city - well the best thing you can do is politely decline. Warner and the JG have championed every single tax increase proposed in the city of Fort Wayne and they are certainly no friends of fiscal discipline.

His column, which read as a plea from your administration to raise taxes, isn’t going to help. The people of Huntington are tapped out and they simply can’t afford to let you and your cronies tax them to oblivion to support more government jobs. So let me offer a few suggestions in place of your whining:

“But if you don’t have enough money to plow the streets, to pick up the garbage, if you don’t have enough firefighters to put out fires … where does it end?”

It ends where the taxpayers want it to end. And obviously they don’t want, or can’t afford, to pay anymore. Why does the city need to provide trash services in the first place? The entire city’s trash service should be privatized. This was the case in the city I grew up in with a population of over 400,000 and it worked just fine there. There’s obviously a market for trash service and a private company (or two) will fill the need. It will also likely do it more efficiently and the cost will be born by the users directly.

As for firefighters, more and more cities around the country are moving back to volunteer firehouses. Has Huntington considered this? If not, why not? According to the article, 15% of property tax payments are delinquent. Why not get some of these people to pay their debts by plowing the streets, hauling garbage or volunteering at a firehouse?

You might be surprised at how much people are willing to chip in when they can see the results and it doesn’t go to an ever-increasing black-hole of government spending…

Comments

[My Take]

While I am unfamiliar with Tracy Warner or his stance on tax revenue, I can assure you of a few things. The problem is that the average taxpayer wants to have their cake and eat it too. The people of Huntington have always had their trash picked up by the city and quite frankly expect the status quo to continue no matter if they pay for it through taxes or not. The average property owner in Huntington has seen their tax bill decrease quite dramatically thanks to HB 1001. While I’m all for making government smaller and more efficient, the good people here fail to realize that property tax caps have gone beyond cutting the fat in most cases and are cutting into staff, services and the likes. Mitch and the fine folks of the State Legislature heard the people complain about property taxes long enough that they actually did something about it. They even openly admit that in order to survive, local governments will have to implement user fees, optional taxes, and other financing mechanisms. While I am not opposed to paying for private garbage collection, a majority of residents are. These same people fail to realize they are saving hundreds of dollars a year in property taxes and only see it as an additional fee. In the case of the freighters, my first reaction is that we were overstaffed and there was plenty of fat to be trimmed there. If you have driven the streets of Huntington recently, you will notice that almost every other house has a "we support Huntington city fireman" sign. These people are simply afraid that in the event of an emergency, they will not have adequate fire protection. They have idolized the fireman, not so much the school teachers or garbage man, but the firefighters yes. The fireman are not helping the situation much either, trying to protect their own (rightfully so) and instilling fear into the general public by closing down a station. The citizens have to realize that if they want all of their services and luxuries, they have to continue paying for them (at some level). It is not as if Huntington is the only community facing these issues, places all across the state are from city to county to school board. Do I think the mayor or other elected/appointed officials handled things good? Heck no! I’m all for privatization if it saves me some money, but I doubt it will because somewhere along the line, someone will have to make a profit. I’m a fan of the hybrid paid/volunteer system, but the public won’t let that fly if I had to guess. Everything going on is magnified by the recession and all of its lovely implications, but the reality is that it’s a problem of today and it must be solved soon. Bottom line, it is probably going to get worse before it gets better.

[Ryan]

"Why not get some of these people to pay their debts by plowing the streets, hauling garbage or volunteering at a firehouse?"

Because that's called indentured servitude, you asshole? *smug grin*

If the government can make you work for them for free to pay off your property tax debt, where is their incentive to charge less property tax?

If we're going to do this, I propose that we just strike OSHA, the minimum wage, overtime laws, and the EPA, and just live in a factory dorm like they do in China and not work for much more than meals and a cot to sleep on, while the factory dumps anything they damned well please into the rivers and air.

Some of the business crooks behind the teabagger association would like this too, but it doesn't mean it's a good idea for we the people.

"There’s obviously a market for trash service and a private company (or two) will fill the need. It will also likely do it more efficiently and the cost will be born by the users directly."

Who doesn't have trash picked up? Am I missing something? You didn't want to pay $3 or $10 a month (I heard both figures) to have the city do it, but you want to pay $15 or $20 for a private for-profit company to come do it for you? Where in the hell is the efficiency? Hello!? Nobody has ever told me how a for-profit company that exists to haul in money (the profit thing) will be better than the city charging you at cost (meaning no more than it costs them to actually do it).

Will someone, ANYONE, please enlighten me here?

"You might be surprised at how much people are willing to chip in when they can see the results and it doesn’t go to an ever-increasing black-hole of government spending…"

You're right! Hallelujah!!! I see the light!!! Please allow me to volunteer my labor as a fireman or a garbage collector so the doctors and lawyers in this town don't have to pay taxes! Where do I sign? No better yet...*pulls down pants and bends over* you sign right there. :)

[Its not funny]

My take, Huntington City and the Town of Andrews is in the top 10% of the highest tax rates in the State of Indiana and most probably in the top 1% of nepotism. Until we rid ourselves in Huntington County of nepotism, having less than qualified appoitees in strategic positions (Dave Shoeff City Engineer this just one of many fine examples)and keep Huntington out of the nightly news we will continue to suffer. We need to bring jobs back into Huntington, can you imagine being a developer and seeing Huntington on the news then meeting our City Administration along with our President of the Commissioners, Mark Wikersham has a no win position. Cities and towns across this State have known about HB1001 since 2008 its called Strategic Planning and as you can see by the News both printed and broadcasted Huntington City or County did not even make an attempt. I travel around the area, we are the laughing stock of Indiana and some really good jokes abound. One thing is for sure will will not cure our budget woes with our Auditor, Commissioner, Mayor, County Council members at French Lick on our nickel.

[Ryan]

@My Take: You nailed it buddy. The property tax "cuts" are just going to be shifted around into new local taxes. It's not discouraging wasteful spending, it's shifting around how they take exactly the same amount of money from you. BTW, it's also hurting people with lower incomes who tend to rent. How so? My landlord who basically gets to sit on his ass and take in rent money pays less taxes and the burden gets shifted onto me in the form of the new taxes. So the property tax cuts have jsut shifted things around and foisted additional taxes on the people who can least afford to take them on. It was nothing more than a Republican political stunt. Even worse, you now have them wanting to amend the state constitution without having studied the effects this is having as statute law,

"Heck no! I’m all for privatization if it saves me some money, but I doubt it will because somewhere along the line, someone will have to make a profit."

History has shown time and time again that privatization causes extra expense at best and outright corruption and fraud at work. Privatization proponents have usually been paid by one of the potential contractors, either in bribes or as "campaign contributions" otherwise known as bribes.

Will a hybrid paid/volunteer system work? Doubtful. Would you want to work for free when a guy doing the same job is making a salary?

People have time. This time is finite. People have bills, bills require money to pay them with. Assuming you did find someone that would love to volunteer to be a firefighter, they can't afford to spend their finite waking hours doing something that doesn't pay bills.

Steve Updike needs to find a genie bottle and make one of his wishes "I wish there were a bunch of people with no bills and tons of free time to work for the city without needing a paycheck.

Clearly the solution here.

[Ryan]

Hey look, I found a volunteer street department worker!

http://img241.imageshack.us/img241/1425/1000542b.jpg

I just used 30-ish pounds of his old litter to fill in some potholes in the alley behind my house! Who knows how much I saved the town. Jabba was glad to help too! :)

[Andy Zay]

We are not asking the right questions.

[Hank Reardon]

Ryan, "My landlord basically gets to sit on his ass and take in rent money and take in rent money pays less taxes and the burden gets shifted to me." Your landlord went out and bought property with the risk that he will be able to people to rent from his property. There are no guarantees. He/she has to compete with government ran apartments built off of Hauenstein Road on the most expensive commercial property in Huntington that are funded by my taxes. Eventually those apartments will be trashed like the ones by Memorial Park. Why? Because the "renters" have no skin in the game; they are "free". You are part of the entitlement society that want me and everyone else to pay for you to set around at your computer all day and trash those who pay your bills. You are against private enterprise and profits. What do you think people go into business for to employee people or make money? The difference why private industry can do it for less? The profit motive. Government has no incentive to be productive. Bribes? It happens sometimes, but the biggest corruption I see is government employees being overpaid in salary and benefits that cannot be sustained. I'm self employed so when I get on the computer during the day its money out of my pocket. I rely on no one but myself. Maybe you should try it. If not try Venezuela, you’ll be with all your comrades.

[Sam Huntington]

I'll tell you how private businesses make money, they work efficiently. They use trucks that employ one person to operate it to pick up garbage - not three people. The utilities employ state of the art operation equipment that is automated to cut down on the number of staff required to operate pumps. Yes it is time to seriously consider privatizing our garbage collection and our water and sewer treatment plants. It is time to think outside the box and do what is right for Huntington's future growth and survival.

[paul scalf]

all the talk about privatized trash being the way to go is stupid . people complained because they didnt want to pay $10 a month , how much does roanoke , andrews , warren , or markle pay ? how often have they had rate increases ? and as far as one man garbage trucks , those are hundreds of thousands each and you cant operate w/ just one . i dont like the idea trash sitting outside my back door for 2 weeks but i guess the people of huntington are about to find out you get what you pay for . dont like you current situation , call your councilman repeatedly . they are your voice .

[Hillbilly from Huntington]

Just a thought,,,, Why is the Mayor and the County Commissioners getting the blame for not attracting new businesses in Huntington County??? Last time i heard that duty feel upon one person's shoulders. That one person gets paid a large salary, rents an expensive office space, has large utility bills and seems to have an opinion on matters that has nothing to do with his job but must like to "stir the pot" and try to blame other people so the light doesn't shine on his own rear end and his own inadequacies in bringing much needed jobs to town. He will try to take credit for the latest businesses in town but that's far from the truth. If anyone needs to step down or be replaced it is this person. The City and County are responsible for overseeing this position which is the,,,,,,,,, Economic Development Director.