Let’s just say right from the beginning it appeared that Thursday’s council meeting was going to be anything but boring. The official tax resolution was read into the public records and soon thereafter the council took the topic of the tax mileage and ran with it.

The Mayor said she had a problem with it and would like to see a rollback on the mileage so that the citizens of St. Cloud would save some money. But then, within another breath, “If we do this I don’t think we could keep the same level of services up for our citizens.”

Let’s keep in mind last year’s budget was somewhere around 85 Million Dollars. The new budget is estimated to be around 130 Million Dollars. Boy, what an increase of money in just one year! Oh, by the way- - if the council would reduce the mileage rollback rate the total amount would be $900 thousand to about 1 Million dollars. Not a large amount of money when looking at a $130 Million dollar budget. It seems the council wants to keep up the lavish lifestyle of spend and spend as of years past.

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Next came time for citizen input. And input there was. Several citizens came up to speak on this subject. All who spoke were for a reduced mileage rate. Mr. Bruce Raynor spoke of his highest tax increase ever last year. He said to the council that “the economy has slowed and people were bleeding.” His quote to the council was “I think it’s time for the council to lower taxes and bleed a little like all of us are doing.”

Others came to the podium and echoed similar words in support of Mr. Raynor. This was the first reading of the cities mileage tax rate for the 2008 year. There will be another hearing in two weeks. All citizens of St. Cloud should attend the next council meeting so that your voices may be heard. You can make a difference, the same way you can by voting in the upcoming election on September 18, 2007. Hope to see all of you there.
The Informer