Once again - more Lies from Ask Damascus:
- The City may have budgeted that amount but that was NOT spent.
The City of Damascus has actually spent $9,693,174 in that three year period.
This is less than 35% of what Ask Damascus is claiming!
- "They" knew it wouldn't work? Who said this? Metro has never said this.
The only thing remotely close was a comment from David Bragdon saying "he suspected
all along that Damascus and the thousands of other acres added to the region's urban
growth boundary in 2002 would never develop as planned."
Why the discrepancy from budget to spent? The answer is that when the City
creates a budget, it has to include all anticipated revenue, including any
potential grants that will be pursued. If the grant is not awarded to the city,
then the expenses tied to that grant are not spent. Ask Damascus can't even get
this fact straight - yet they are asking all of the voters to understand the
intricacies of budget law.
Another factor is that the revenue the City receives when growth occurs cannot
be spent! These taxes sit in a fund until an election can be held and then are
spent only if the citizens agree to raise the cap. This is a waste of those
taxes.
This measures actually discourages City tax-saving strategies. Should a one-time
cost-saving opportunity come up in one year, the cap could short-change the budget
for the next year, so city employees would be discouraged from finding one-time
cost saving measures to ensure essential spending would not be curtailed the following
year.
Grant money, which is helps offset City costs, is so competitive and filled with
time constraints that the city's eligibility will be reduced considerably if matching
funds must first be voted on in an election.
Having to vote every two years takes our community from being able to proactively
manage the growth to a place where we are now reacting to it instead.
Isn't this why the citizens overwhelming voted to create a city in the first place?
Wasteful and crippling ... this does not belong in the city charter.Vote
NO on 3-353!