— from Bob Waunch —

Why is it that as soon as someone has an idea to help solve a problem the first thing that comes up is – let’s create a new tax!

Instead, how about we sit down and try to think creatively of other ways to solve the problem that does not include any government or newly created agency to ‘oversee’ use of our tax dollars.

I’m referring specifically to the proposed YES FOR HOMES on the November ballot. The initiative sounds good on the surface but in fact all it does is ‘increase’ the cost of housing by adding another tax burden on everyone, and that includes the people that would own the new ‘affordable’ properties.
Here’s a suggestion for your thinking caps: eliminate some government instead of adding more. Many cities and municipalities have done this by outsourcing some or all of their governmental functions to private contractors.

The first place we could start would be with Public Works. Everything they do could be done (and a lot of it is already) by private contractors. Public works has a lot of employees, a lot of expensive equipment and lots of property that all require tax dollars to support. Public Works could keep a couple of engineers to oversee public projects but all their employees and equipment could be absorbed by local excavation, etc. operators, and all projects would be bid on a competitive basis; plus the former employees would now be paying citizens instead of burdens on the tax payers.

But let’s get back to the housing problem. Now all that public works property (that is already owned by the citizens) could be made available at ‘very reasonable’ lease rates to private contractors to build affordable housing. Plus, the County Building Department could eliminate all duplication of the same task; e.g. if they approve one house in a project then they should rubber stamp all the remaining houses if they meet the same standards – for no additional cost.

Now instead of more new taxes we, the citizens, would be donating the land we already own, the land would provide income from the leases, we would see a decrease in the cost of public works projects because of competitive bidding and the Building Department would substantially reduce the cost for developers.

These types of solutions are called ‘Win-Win’ and we wouldn’t have the burden of another government agency.

I vote NO on the YES FOR HOMES new tax proposal but I vote YES for looking for creative solutions to the affordable housing problem.

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