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Memo From a 'Tax-Slave'
To the Editor:
This is a memo to Sam, Bob, Dan, Priscilla & Wendy from one of your tax-slaves who is writing to let you know that while the five of you are spending your "days fiddling while Rome burns", our town is going to hell in a handbasket. The problem is NOT Dawn Powell. It's not Sam's ethics or lack thereof- it's the taxes, stupid! You just voted for a budget with a 12% increase. On top of the 18% County increase and whatever the school will be extracting from us. What were you all thinking about?
This bickering and hoopla is nothing more than a smokescreen for your total ineptitude regarding the finances of our community and the plague of out of control spending and spiraling taxes you've inflicted on us. Not one elected official in the last 10 years gave a darn about the taxpayers of PV and that includes the five of you. Do any of you read the papers to see what's been happening during your reign? Putnam Valley has the highest taxes not just in the NY metro region, but in the entire US! They will no doubt get even higher since none of you has the intelligence or the courage to make the hard decisions that need to be made to deal with the crisis we face.
Talk about nepotism- we have 3 sisters on the town payroll, one of whom formerly held Dawn P.'s hotly contested position. Instead, of letting this person go when the new regime took over, she was kept on and given another job in town hall to make up for the patronage position she'd lost. Did anyone consider just letting her go to save some money? For that matter, how about getting rid of some of the other unnecessary employees whose salaries and benefits we are so generously funding? Do you ever do personnel reviews for performance and productivity? Are there any standards such as
you'd find in the private sector for discipline or termination, or are these lifetime jobs? When was the last time our employees were tested? By the way- here's a suggestion- you should make it a requirement that anyone who works for the town or sits on any appointed Board pass a basic 8th grade reading comprehension exam before they're allowed to serve. Bet we lose a few with that one.
I'd also like to know if you ever sit down with the P.O.s, invoices and bills to do basic comparison shopping to make sure we're getting the best deal on the things you buy with our money. I watch you on TV approving the most unbelievable expenditures with nary a question when an employee comes to you demanding another half a mill for the Taj Mahal, oops, I mean the Town Park. It seems that you just can't say No to anyone. It's so much easier to go with the flow when it's someone else's money.
Unfortunately, I have become so cynical over the many years I've lived here that I don't expect any compassion or restraint from the shameless lot of you. The downward spiral will continue until we are bled dry, victims of the insatiable greed of the monster you helped to create.
Patty Vil1anova
Putnam Valley
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