I want to share a letter I wrote to the TimesFreePress in response to yesterday's editorial. I have been assured that it will be published, but with the upcoming budget hearing on Monday morning, thought I would try to get ahead of the "news cycle". I confess that some of my intensity on this issue is a bit personal. One of the greatest negatives attached to politics is in the area of hypocrisy. As someone who has been attacked as lacking "honesty and integrity" for taking consistent, public and principled stands on this issue, it does bother me that Vice-Mayor Susan Robertson stated during her campaign last fall that she "hoped we wouldn't have a tax increase" for several years then almost immediately after being re-elected began advocating tax increase after tax increase, first a "wheel tax", then a "garbage tax" and now an increase in property taxes. At the same time her supporters were attacking other candidates as supporting tax increases for merely pointing out something that Ms. Robertson should have known better than anyone that the town faced fiscal challenges in the near term. The campaign would have been a good time to discuss this honestly and openly, but she and her supporters chose to fall back on ad hominem attacks on other candidates and to obscure the facts about the town's situation. Now the chickens have come home to roost.
One other comment I'd like to make is on the "elephant in the room" issue which was so dominant 4 years ago, growth and planning. We started a three-step process in 2006 to complete a new planning and development process in Signal Mountain, encouraging "smart growth" and conservation-oriented growth planning. We completed a land-use plan in the first year as the first step. The next step was a re-write of our subdivision regulations. It has now been almost 3 1/2 years and this second step is not complete. All this was preliminary to the real issue of re-writing our zoning laws to encourage progressive land use principles. I opposed the repeal of the Shackleford Ridge ordinances for two main reasons: first because I had promised to revise and improve them, not just repeal them and return to old processes that I felt were flawed and wasteful of land and resources. I believe in keeping my promises, so I did. Second, I knew that these ordinances needed to be improved and felt that keeping them in place would serve as an incentive to the Planning Commission to get its job done. I felt that, if the ordinances were repealed, there would be a general attitude of "mission accomplished" and that, since the whole goal of the "recall" crowd was to shut down all growth on Signal Mountain, there would be foot-dragging to prevent any growth. I was obviously right.
We will continue to face revenue challenges, ie the need for new taxes. The solution to this is an increase in our tax base. Our current Planning Commission rejected the only major commercial project proposed in the last few years (with the exception of the hair-brained idea of selling off town property to commercial development, which I did oppose as did just about everyone else in town that I talked with). This is an issue which must be addressed directly and not by foot-dragging and overblown rhetoric about "unbridled growth". Census reports have shown that the town is stagnant and that is not a good thing.
I hope that some people can attend the public hearing on the budget on Monday morning at the Town Hall. Frankly, I think it is ridiculous to have such an important public hearing on a Monday morning rather than at a time that the people who work for a living can attend. Nonetheless, it is what it is. If you can't go and still want to express your opinion, you can email the council as follows:
Mayor Bill Lusk: blusk@signalmountaintn.gov
Vice-mayor Susan Robertson: srobertson@signalmountaintn.gov
Annette Allen: aallen@signalmountaintn.gov
Dick Gee: dgee@signalmountaintn.gov
Bill Wallace: bwallace@signalmountaintn.gov
Now (finally), here is my letter:
Dear Editor;
Your editorial in today’s paper (6/23/2011) on Signal Mountain’s recent tax vote is misleading. Over the last few years, the Town of Signal Mountain has raised its own taxes several times to pay for a high school which should have been paid for by Hamilton County like every other school in the county. This dream of a local High School finally came to fruition in 2008 and has been an incredible success. The town undertook a $7.7 million bonded indebtedness for this school which was originally scheduled to be paid off over 20 years. Due to a combination of using previously collected sales taxes (also voted on by the citizens for the school), early tax collections and low interest rates, we have lowered that debt nearly by half in just four years. We have truly made hay while the sun shone.
Part of the reason for the rapid pay down of this loan is that tax collections from the school portion of the property tax were set high in anticipation of higher interest rates than have occurred. Because of this, we are collecting amounts much in excess of the minimum annual payments. Now, in this time of economic downturn the town has wisely decided to use that excess tax revenue for other needs. You state that we have “extended” the payoff to 2021 when in reality we have shortened it by 6 years! You don’t mention the hundreds of thousands of dollars in interest saved by shortening the life of this loan. This school will be just as valuable, if not more so in 2021 as it is now so it is truly an investment in the future. A family takes out a mortgage on a house to extend payments over time for budgeting purposes and the Town of Signal Mountain has wisely done the same.
I support the recent decision of the Town Council to keep overall tax rates steady while shifting priorities from debt service towards needed services and maintenance and hope that you will also see the wisdom in this approach.
Sincerely,
Paul M. Hendricks, MD
Former Signal Mountain Mayor and Town Council member
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