05/22/2010 & 05/25/2010 Town Council Study Session & Meeting

With the defeat of Prop 406, what will the Council do next? There is a Special Meeting this Saturday, May 22, at 8 am in the Council Chambers. At the May 19 meeting, Eddie Cook asked the Council to include an agenda item for May 22, to make it their policy going forward to always fund Public Safety first. He stated that many employees in Public Safety were fearful for their jobs. This should never happen again. Later in that meeting Linda Abbott tried arguing that she has always put Public Safety first and didn’t need any prompting from Mr Cook. (Linda Abbott you may recall, voted with the Majority of Council members back in June 2009 to cut $1 million out of the Fire Department’s budget. Linda’s words don’t match her vote!)
We would hope the Council releases reserve funds, or transfers funds to reinstate the $1 million that they removed from the Fire Department’s budget back in June 2009. Council members who voted to remove this money from Public Safety were Linda Abbott, Dave Crozier, Les Presmyk, and Steve Urie (recently resigned from the Council to run for Arizona State Representative. Vote NO on Steve Urie.).
We also would support the Council’s decision to find more places to cut the budget. There were many suggestions made by the CBC (Citizens Budget Committee) that were not fully embraced.
We do not support, however, any motion made by any Council member to find "creative" ways to increase revenue by taxing Gilbert residents or businesses, or by instituting license fees, or inspection fees, or any other "creative" fees.
So watch out! Which Council member works to find a way to put Public Safety first without taxing an already taxed enough Gilbert resident or business?
Which Council member tries to find a new way to tax residents or businesses?
Hold elected officials accountable. Force them to respect the will of the people they represent. The Majority of Gilbert voters do NOT want to be taxxed anymore than they are already. They spoke loudly and clearly on 5/18/2010.