Massaponax Church Road fix updates

Thanks for posting this Dan. Looking this over… I think it’s pretty easy to see that the VRE money we get, while very helpful, is not going to touch the costs associated with these projects.

And remember also that these are slimmed down projects to focus on the most urgent areas once the county discovered that the original estimates in the VDOT 6yr plan were outdated and about 1/2 or less than the actual costs.

I am also amused by the fiction that School Board money will be used to fix Massaponax – like they didn’t get the money from Spotsylvania County and it’s taxpayers.

What the School system accomplished by putting the school on that road was to essentially bump up the priority for that road to be upgraded at the expense of some other planned upgrade that will not be deferred.

I add these projects up to 40 million. I believe the referenda was for $120 million and I forget what happened. Did we hold off on the rest?

Bill – are the advocating for an increase in the state (or Federal) gasoline tax?

I would only point out that most polls show about 80% of citizens opposed to the idea so no pol Dem or Republican is likely to wade into that bee nest.

Here’s the deal from my perspective. If we think the answer is higher taxes – then we have that option right now an further – we have the ability to spend that money instead of waiting for it to come back to us from Richmond at some point in the future minus what is a substantial “administrative” fee that from what I can tell is more than 20% (looking at VDOT budgets).

So we, at the local level, have the ability to control our own destiny without sending even MORE taxes to Richmond or Washington, right?

Now.. if you’re thinking we should get more of them back or that we should just do away with the existing gas taxes, then that’s a whole different ball game and I have to admit, I’ve never seen a ball that asks how many folks would do away with gas taxes all together.

or am I on a wildly different understanding of your “vents”?

I can only direct you to pages 2 through 12 of the BOS April 20, 2010 meeting minutes to see how your VRE seed money will be spent FY 2011.

My only question was how Supv. Connors, directly after the vote was taken on the budget, could have prepared a WRITTEN statement to the public, 3 pages long and his rationale for voting on .86 per 100 when moments before he didn’t know what the vote was going to be.

His claim that he still has some issues that need to be addressed (in the budget), he launchs the BOS’s “Reinventing Government Task Force” to look for ways to streamline and CONSOLIDATE our operations and PROCESSES and hopfully make some SUBSTANTIVE changes that help us do things better, CHEAPER and FASTER.

Why can’t he and the Board just provide more tranparency to the public and let the public be the judge of how fast and cheap and consolidated the public wants government to be, or is that something the public is required to take on faith alone? BECAUSE, I don’t don’t see any documents or details, other than scripted that would alow the public to make an informed decision on anything.

FIRE/RESCUE and EMS just being one the many issues the public took on faith and for 10 years and watched it unravel in a single day.

Maybe Supv. Connors has the where-with-all to open some doors, so the public can look in and decide for themselves what serves in the County’s best interest or not, or a least get a qualified explanation why HIS road is the only road. You really don’t know uless you ask.

No, I am sorry if I did not make myself clear.

Go back to my 6/24/10, 8:05 pm post #2 and carefully read the third paragraph. I would have the majority of our taxes of all kinds paid at the local level. I agree with you, that is the most efficient and most cost effective for the tax-payers.

I carry the movement one more step, with tongue in cheek, that the fed and state lower our income taxes to very low levels and let the locality levy taxes and fix the problems.

The tongue in cheek comes from my knowledge that the fed and state is not about to give up that revenue. That is the “rub” I mentioned because we will pay for some things twice or three times due to the fact that they get the money now and do not fix the problems. Sooner or later we will have to pay again at the local level to get anything fixed.

I also agree with you about entitlements and I would like to see the retirement age raised to 70, perhaps higher for some people.

We all get upset when we hear of some bone-headed example of govt waste and abuse and rightly so but about 90% of the Federal budget is the Military and Entitlements. While it might feel good to flush some corrupt agency … any real reductions in taxes will on result from cuts in the Military or cuts in Entitlements and most Federal budget non-partisan players unfortunately say that we’ll need to not only cut entitlements but raise taxes because right now we’re funding two wars on a credit card at the same time we did tax cuts.

At the State level it’s pretty simple. The vast, vast majority of money at the State level goes for education and public safety with about 70% of it coming back to the counties to fund teachers and deputies and the like.

We could cut the state money. In fact, we are seeing it right now as the economy has effectively “cut” the state revenues and they have, in turn, cut what they give to us – much to the consternation of the BOS who have advised citizens to yell at their state reps … and I always ask … what should we be telling our state reps? raise the state taxes so they can “fully fund” our local deputies and teachers?

Huh?

Why not – NOT ASK the state to raise our taxes AND let us decide at the local level just how many deputies and teachers we can afford and/or are willing to pay for ?

Why do we need to depend on the State for this money ESPECIALLY if the way it works is that they take it out of our income – send it to Richmond then let a bunch of State bean-counters decide how much to send back to us?

If we truly want to become MORE self reliant – let’s NOT ask for State tax increases and let’s by all means take more responsibility at the local level for what we can afford and what we cannot.

one more thing.. at the Federal Tax level – ALL Federal Taxes are at the lowest level in decades …. is what I hear…