{"id":349,"date":"2007-03-13T18:31:59","date_gmt":"2007-03-13T23:31:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.citizennetmom.com\/?p=349"},"modified":"2007-03-13T18:35:51","modified_gmt":"2007-03-13T23:35:51","slug":"3000-signatures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.citizennetmom.com\/?p=349","title":{"rendered":"3,000 Signatures"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 3,000 signatures are all the talk today: AT<\/a>‘s lit up with a righteous lecture on the workings of a representative democracy, while Daco<\/a> steadfastly defends the petitioners’ right to petition, even while disagreeing with their wish to do so.<\/p>\n

Both are absolutely correct.<\/p>\n

Yes, we have a right to petition for a referendum on general obligation borrowing in Tennessee. That’s an important right, because it’s a final check-and-balance against an elected body over-obligating the citizenry, well beyond the terms of elected office.<\/p>\n

At the same time, it’s possible to over-exercise that right (as well as any one of many others) and develop a reputation that isn’t at all aligned with the image we’d like to present to the world. Just in the last four or so years, we had the mall referendum, the charter referendum, the high school referendum, and now this.<\/p>\n

The mall referendum was over a $23.2M note, and failed. It had been a while since the charter was updated and was time to do so, but make no mistake — the whole drive for a charter commission came from the same folks who were upset about the whole mall referendum, with a good bit of the discussion centering on things like a TABOR and such. The high school referendum was called by City Council simply by virtue of the sales tax increase requested to pay the note; $55M is a whole lot of money, spread over a long time. It needed to pass, and it did (thank you).<\/p>\n

The current proposal is much smaller, with a maximum proposed borrowing at about $6M. Some members of City staff think they might be able to get it down to as little as $3M. The return on investment, while not a jackpot, is solid. The benefits to the schools and to citizens would be immediate.<\/p>\n

So yes, it’s within any citizen’s right to call for a referendum on the general obligation note, but I think it’s petty and small-minded. I also remain convinced that the whole opposition movement is less about the debt than lingering resentment about the site itself… many of the key players are the same ones who objected to the initial development several years ago.<\/p>\n

As a community, I think most of us recognize that we need to broaden our tax base. Most understand that sales taxes are a part of that (although many do not understand how much sales taxes in particular directly benefit education). What I’m afraid most people do NOT realize is, if we don’t turn around our sales tax deficit quickly, property taxes will have to rise or services will have to be cut.<\/p>\n

Many of the same people carrying petitions today will object vehemently, but property tax increases levied by local government are not subject to referendum. So, the tax increase will pass. Residents will be unhappy, and continue grousing as they subsidize Knox County Schools and Knox County government while shopping at Turkey Creek, Cedar Bluff, and West Town Mall.<\/p>\n

Oak Ridge is just full of smart people; how can we be so stupid?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The 3,000 signatures are all the talk today: AT‘s lit up with a righteous lecture on the workings of a representative democracy, while Daco steadfastly defends the petitioners’ right to petition, even while disagreeing with their wish to do so. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10,3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.citizennetmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.citizennetmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.citizennetmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.citizennetmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.citizennetmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.citizennetmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.citizennetmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.citizennetmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.citizennetmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}