To the Editor:

The John Day town hall meeting was a love fest proposing their “tax and spend” mentality the Biden administration is forcing on us. The pawns in this scenario of an additional levy are our police force. It alarms me the police did not fight for it as a safety issue while in the budget process. No one wants to defund the police, but the JD administration has already done that in total disregard to its citizens. Safety is the primary function of any government (police and fire). To cover the cost overrun of the fire hall, the city transferred funds from the water fund for a loan to be paid back by the JDFD and JDRFD for this mistake. Now this levy is an attempt to force more debt on citizens for the police. Both have been ignored and are being used as collateral to tax and spend. The city has already been given, in the past two years, by taxpayers in Grant County through the URA (Urban Renewal Ponzi scam) a whopping $84,257. This program takes away the future increases in value to the taxing districts and gives to the city for incentives. It gives the city the authority to move boundaries to their liking, and the city can charge the program $30,000 in administrative fees. Their snipes of the Grant County Court were heard and will be met with. In all programs they come up with a substantial opposition effort. It robs from the poor and gives to the rich. The next scam to cover is the greenhouse failure. The city manager was more than a little disingenuous in the figures he gave a young lady in the audience. Fact is $180,000 of COVID-19 money was put into the greenhouse, not $5,000, according to the approved budget. Another fact that the manager is wrong about is “out of pocket money ($40,000),” which in fact there was over $700,000 put into this albatross. According to this FY budget the net figure for the greenhouse is in the negative $141,784. At least the COVID money could be used to fund a viable police department. Just a shell game and misinformation by this less than stellar administration. Vote no to hold the administration responsible.

Bob Pereira

John Day