Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Tax cut. Can Tampa make it a Win-Win?

Perhaps I'm being too logical here, but today it hit me that these two events might be able to help each other:

1(link) Tax cuts: "Mayor Pam Iorio laid off 121 full-time city employees and eliminated 133 part time and seasonal jobs and 115 other vacant posts Thursday to trim $15-million from the city's bottom line. "

2 (link) Code enforcement/collection: "Court records show the city fined Bitman about $43,000 in a 1999 code case involving inoperable vehicles and open storage but never collected."

"... the oldest violations date nearly 10 years to a vacant lot ... which has fines totaling about $107,000."

Seems to me that if Tampa wants to help make up the shortfall in property tax cuts, they should be investing more in code enforcement/collection -- not less.

What do you think? Am I missing something here -- or are they?

4 comments:

anonaMISS said...

THIS ADMINISTRATION IS THE WORSE THING THAT HAS HAPPENED TO TAMPA.

FIRST, DO THE MATH. BY CUTTING THESE POSTIONS, EVEN IF YOU TAKE ALL THREE NUMBER 121, 133, AND 115 ADD THEM TOGETHER EQUALS 369. NOW DIVIDE INTO THE 15000000, YOU ARE TALKING OVER $40k PER EMPLOYEE. THIS IS ABSOLUTELY CRAZY. LOOK AT ALL THE DEAD WEIGHT ON STAFF THAT ARE STILL EMPLOYED.

NOW, TAKE A LOOK AT THE CODE ISSUE. THE MAYOR MADE SUCH A NOISE ABOUT HER NEW POLICY ON FORECLOSURES. LET'S ASK HOW MANY HAVE BEEN FORECLOSED. IN BOSTON, THE CITY MADE MILLIONS OF DOLLARS EACH YEAR BY FORECLOSING ON NON HOMESTEADED PROPERTY, COLLECTING FINES, ETC. LOOK HOW MUCH MONEY IS BEING LOST DUE TO OUR LAZY AND IGNORANT LOCAL GOVERNMENT.

ON ANOTHER NOTE WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME I-275 WAS MOWED. WHERE IS THE MONEY GOING THAT IS ALLOCATED TO KEEP THE THOROUGHFARES CLEAN AND MOWED.

PEOPLE THOUGHT GRECO WAS BAD, WAIT TIL THEY SEE THE DAMAGE OREO DOES TO THIS CITY.

Skeeterman said...

I think this petty much sums it up

This is the City of Tampa's Neighborhood Interface
http://www.tampagov.net/dept_Neighborhood_and_community_relations/

This is what a real city looks like
http://www.portlandonline.com/oni/

Mal Carne said...

I hate to tell you this, but Portland has not always been the ideal city that you are using as an example. When I first moved there 20 years ago to go to school, the city had just won the award for "most homicides per capita for the entire country". It stole that title from Tampa the year before. The place was freakin' dangerous.

I've lived or worked in almost every entertainment/shopping district that are being touted as hotspots right now. Old Town/China Town used to be the best place to buy the worst heroin and gave birth to such terms as "skid row" and "Shanghai'd". NW 21/23rd Ave and the Pearl District; worked in those areas for years, only got jumped leaving work a couple of times. Hawthorne/Belmont; used to be full of white trash tweakers - had to clean syringes out of a couple of apartments when moving in. Alberta St.; owned my first house there. Was a nice place if you don't mind 9mm shells on your sidewalk and people trying to sell you crack through your open living room window.

My point being is that there has been a big transition in a relativly short time. A couple of factors contributing to that are smart growth plans and a generally more progressive attitude than is found here. I wouldn't tout Portland as a "real city" for a yardstick to guage quality of life because it's had a horrible past and the upswing has not been in existence for that long to know if it will last.

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