January 3, 2012

 

 

Dear Patriot(s),

 

I just received word that there is a meeting of the BC Roads & Bridges Committee scheduled for this Thursday (1/5) at the Durrand Center in Harrison - 6pm. This will be an important meeting at which time the proposed amendment to the 2012 road budget will be discussed.

 

The next regular QC meeting will be held on Monday (1/9) at the Durrand Center in Harrison - 7pm.

 

It will be important that we have a tremendous constituent turn-out at both meetings to show our support for this proposal.

 

In a nut shell: the Judge is asking for additional funding for the maintenance of our rural roads for this year. He is proposing that the amount of money allocated to County law enforcement (i.e. jail) from the General Fund be reduced for one year with those General Funds being applied to the road budget.

 

As you recall, the citizens passed a 1/4 cent sales tax in 2005 for the purpose of "building, maintaining and operating" a new jail. The jail bonds have now been paid off. There is approx. $650,000 currently in the jail account with an additional income of approx. $100,000 per month being added to it. To date, very little of this money has been used for its intended purpose other than making the bond payments. If these funds continue to simply sit there and do nothing, by the time this tax sunsets (in 2017) there will have amassed $7 million. (I don't know about you but $7 million sounds like an awfully tempting slush fund to be sitting there.) Money is too tight for our tax dollars to sit there and do nothing. If the county is not going to use it then perhaps they should return it to the taxpayers. I for one will put it to good work.

 

As you can see, this is an important issue and I encourage all BCTP members and supporters to attend both of these meetings.

 

Also, keep in mind that it is not customary for the public to be allowed to speak at committee meetings; therefore, in order to help get our point across, I ask that you take a few minutes to send Judge Norton an email indicating your support for his proposal no later than Thursday (1/5) at noon. He is in the process of gathering the names of supporters so that he can present them to the QC and show them (just as we did with the flood plane issue) that We the People are paying attention and remind them that they work for us.