June 10, 2013
Monday AM

Editor;

 I am following the discourse on taxation with interest.  It seems that the only ones happy with the situation are those spending and those receiving the tax money.  To state the obvious to anyone looking there is not one department of either the Ketchikan borough or city that is run with any kind of acceptable efficiency and that includes the schools.  There is not even an objective standard of performance for them to meet.  Our hospital has been hijacked from us who have paid for every bit of it.  In the summer we are relegated to owners with no rights as cruise ship people are taken care of before we can even be seen!  The rates are three to four times that of comparable for profit hospitals (and they are legal thieves--see the March issue of Time Magazine).  Firehall, library, bloated departments, on and on it goes, all built and run with not a care of cost to the taxpayer.  So of course property values are far beyond reality and taxes among the highest in the state.  We have a city/borough manager who dictates policy and a council/assembly that has accepted a subservient roll contrary to the way it is supposed to be.  The only ones served are a very few special interests out of our pockets.

I have lived in Ketchikan for more than sixty years and although I can point to project after project that was built substandard to the contract let, I have never heard of the council/assembly ever going after a bond for that poor performance.  We pay again and again and still end up with faulty public properties.  

Most of this leads right to the manager's office.  An old saying in politics is: "City Managers are like fish, keep them around too long and they start to smell!"   When local office is treated as a social club rather than a job that needs doing for the benefit of the community as a whole and at a bearable cost this is what we get.  Another political maxim: "When elected the first three months of the term are representing the citizens and then the rest of the time in office is representing the government against the citizen."  A good argument for limiting council members to one term in office, at least you will hopefully get three months of representation!  The Greek City States drafted their governing bodies for one term only.  They also could vote to ostracize them and exile for a period of ten years from the city.  

Engaging in some far fetched fantasy:  Just think what the governmental spending would be like if each councilmember had to write a check out of their own personal checking account when they spent.  Nothing you would recognize that is for sure!  

I might also point out to the naïve that modern conservatives have no knowledge of fiscal responsibility and waste/steal at the same rate as modern liberals so look for other identifiers when choosing whom to vote for.  Probably, if they are asking for your vote you shouldn't bestow it on them.  

To get a little honesty back in the assessment department we should have an ordinance that requires either the borough or city to buy any property at the assessed rate if the owner so requests.  And perhaps it is time to give thought to the elected mayor as manager such as Anchorage's, rather than the professional city manager form of government.  At least you could change the hand in your pocket once in a while!

It is heartening to see a few individuals such as these letters in Sitnews that actually believe in fiscal responsibility.  

Sincerely,

Douglas J. Thompson
Ketchikan, Alaska

Representations of fact and opinions in letters are solely those of the author.
The opinions of the author do not represent the opinions of Sitnews.