MASON CITY – Voters can now head to the polls in Mason City to cast a ballot for or against a proposed new tax.
Cerro Gordo county auditor Ken Kline confirms that voting opened up Friday, January 27th for the proposed Capitol Improvement Levy to raise money for city hall to buy items needed to run the city – as city hall officials claim.
If approved, the city council could levy up to 67 cents per $1,000 of valuation upon property owners in town.
March 7 is the actual election day.
On Monday – after the polls had already opened – city hall sent out more information on the proposed levy. You can read that material below the sample ballot.
Those approving of the new tax say the city needs funds to run its operations and not spend needlessly on bonds, which cost interest and fees, many times totaling thousands of dollars. The city’s award-winning finance department is strongly in favor of this levy proposal.
Those opposed to the new tax say the money won’t be spent wisely by city hall and point to untrustworthy elected officials who admit they have a “trust issue” with the very public they serve. These folks worry the levy dollars could be a “slush fund” to cover unanticipated costs with a possible multi-purpose ice arena. They also point to the fact that Mayor Eric Bookmeyer and others approved a $1 million dollar plan to send an assessor throughout the city to possibly raise the assessed value of properties. The $1 million was levied against property owners to cover the cost of that project.
http://northiowatoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/CityCouncilPacket02-07-17050749020617PM1187.pdf
Vote to approve. This is a good idea.
vote hell no !!!!!!.
Vote no on the BALLOT
This tax will generate a mafia slush fund that every elected official can feed from. Plus it never goes away – just a slush fund for public servants and their kick back friends. Don.t be taken in by this lie.
Good God for some reason every time I see John Lee on tv talking for the city council I feel he is just going to start crying. Does anyone else feel this way?????? I hope he isn’t a big cry baby now!!!!!!!!
Whiny burger flippers just liberals who won’t pay for decent mowers and streets but want food stamps for life VOTE YES
How are you a banker? You lack proper sentence structure, and punctuation. You seem to think low income workers have enough money and credit to purchase property. You think its appropriate to call others names due to their financial standing. Seems like you are either not a banker, or the bank you work for needs to take another look at your social skills. Maybe put you in a cubical by yourself away from other people?
Oh wow! That hurts me so bad. You must really be a bad person. What a ignorant liberal teacher you are.
Everyone get out and vote this down! SEND A MESSAGE about wasteful government spending and being taxed to death and vote NO!!!
Personally, I think it’s more wasteful for the government to take out a 10 year loan to pay for computers that are replaced every 5 years. I’m voting yes.
Get out and vote people. You know the Chamber of Commerce will.
VOTE NO!
WHY?!
They will just spend every dime they get on their downtown wet dream. If they hadn’t spent 700K on a parking garage for something that wasn’t approved and probably won’t be approved they would have money. You can’t believe a word this administration says. That’s why.
This money, by law, cannot be spend on the downtown pet projects
They took tax money that could have been used for expenses like this and wasted it on their pet projects. They have been doing it for years. then they come back for more money. Vote NO!
They did the same thing with Central Park a few years ago. %00K was approved to clean up the park but they wanted more for the Park Inn project and ended up spending almost a million and they did it through change orders. Then they did it again with Northbridge. I don’t trust them and no one else should either.
Id like to see this law that everyone seems to think isnt able to be changed. Look at the ballet, it says city council decides what it is to be used for.
FYI:
A Capital Project is a project that helps maintain or improve a City asset, often called infrastructure. To be included in the Capital Budget, a project must meet ONE of the following requirements (criteria): It is a new construction, expansion, renovation, or replacement project for an existing facility or facilities.
From time to time? Who writes up this stuff? How is this a legal ballet? From time to time is not a unit of measurement, nor does it show a specific period of time. Change the ballet, and make it clear how often city council is able to vote on spending money from this fund. The wording is extremely vague, and that is never a good thing.