By Jeff McCaddon Our City Government believes we are Chumps; and they might be right. Once again we are being asked to financially bail-out a group of irresponsible children who do not know how to manage money. As adults, we all learn that resources are limited and we must live within the confines of a budget. We also learn to distinguish between NEEDS and DESIRES, and how to prioritize our needs before expending resources on desires. Our City Politicians and Managers obviously never learned these lessons. To Hell with a balanced meal, all they want is ice-cream; with plenty of whipped-cream, chocolate syrup, nuts, candy sprinkles and a cherry on top! I agree with the stated purpose of the Tax Increase. We NEED Emergency Services. Which begs the question; why aren’t these Emergency Services goals already met? Emergency Services should be on the top of our City Government’s priority list; but instead they piss tax dollars away on trips, toys and extravagance; not to mention six figure incomes and benefit packages for City Managers. Could it be that they have been starving the muscle to feed the fat? The City wants to support the Police? Great, then shut down the Public Pool that loses nearly half a million dollars each year! If that is not enough, then scrap plans to build a fancy Amphitheater in Beachfront Park. This is not rocket science. What is more important, Police and Firemen; or a Swimming Pool and an Amphitheater? We’ve Bailed out the Fairgrounds, Harbor; not to mention multiple bailouts for a School District that produce students with a 64% illiteracy rate. It seems no government Manager in this entire County can balance a checkbook. If we are going to pay these jokers over $100,000 a year, we should expect them to be responsible with money. Most of the citizens of this County CAN balance a checkbook, and get along quite well with much less than $100,000 per year. Perhaps we should cut our Manager’s wages so they can learn the value of a dollar like the rest of us. We are in the middle of a Pandemic State of Emergency; today, right here and now in Crescent City, at this very minute; yet our City Government is incapable of acknowledging this fact or acting appropriately. This community suffers and they continue to fritter away tens and even hundreds of thousands of dollars on irrelevant studies, pet projects and over-inflated wages! New hiking trails, expensive studies and park plans are shamefully inappropriate expenses by a City Government mired in debt and committed to reckless spending in the middle of a National Emergency. For perspective, consider these facts; the City Council sent the delinquent water bills for collection along with County Real Estate Taxes of 27 families struggling financially during the Pandemic. The total amount of those bills was under $18,000; and now they spent three times that amount on a theoretical emergency that has no relevance to an existing Pandemic Emergency. They spent twice that much on an out-of-town consultant for their new park plans. Is that logical? Is that something that any rational and sober person would do in the middle of a State of Emergency? Our City and County Governments have done nothing to assist community members struggling under the Pandemic business closures. No relief for the average citizen or small business owner. NOTHING! The Small Business Administration has released a list of local Payroll Protection Program recipients. Federal aid through PPP loans intended to benefit laid-off workers have failed to have any local effect. Why? Could it be that 10 out of 26 PPP Loans between $150,000 and $2,000,000 distributed in Crescent City, Smith River and Klamath reported NO RELATED JOBS? That’s right, money to protect paychecks of employees never got to them because the money went to some of the biggest businesses in the County, that reported NO EMPLOYEES. Look it up online. The information is there for all to see. You will see that a business listed in Crescent City and located in Fort Dick listed no related jobs; yet received FIVE Paycheck Protection Program Loans under five corporate headings! Now the PPP Loans are exhausted. How many of the recipients will ask the Federal Government for debt forgiveness? Will any with NO EMPLOYEES request debt forgiveness? God help us if we were ever hit by a Tsunami or burned out of this place! Forget about displaced families and emergency aid for residents; we will all be on our own. Our local government officials would immediately launch a luxury junket to Japan and pay to study the installation of a new boardwalk, roller-coaster and wax museum! Maybe it is just me. Perhaps I just do not appreciate the genius of funneling money into expensive and unnecessary City improvements and annual pay increases for those with six figure incomes when basic maintenance of streets and Emergency Services are ignored. I obviously do not appreciate the lightning-bolt epiphany of lumping additional taxes on a community reeling from Pandemic State of Emergency business closures and mass layoffs. I suppose many of you work for our local government and see this 1% sales tax increase as important for your annual wage increase. You might even be a government Politician or Manager hungry to grab more money to waste. You might also be uninformed and trusting what the new 1% City Sales Tax advertisements tell you. Yet, there is a growing army of citizens who understand our politicians and government managers care only for themselves and a tiny group of insiders. They have created a dividing-line between their community and their government. They have created a government that is served by the people. Their unrestrained greed and waste are awakening a sleeping public. It is time to draw a line in the sand and say “NO MORE TAXES!”