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Perry: Don’t let Aurora’s penny-wise pundits make us pothole foolish
By DAVE PERRY
The Aurora Sentinel
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Now here’s a lesson to learn again. The community panics because the economy goes into the toilet, which is a catchall phrase that really means people aren’t spending money. That sets off a chain reaction ultimately resulting in fewer jobs and much more fear.
We’ve been down this road before many times here in Aurora and all over Colorado. When I was in high school here in the 1970s, unemployment was even higher then than it is now. The entire country was in a deep recession, struggling with the Arab Oil Embargo, aftershocks of the Nixon price and wage freezes and runaway inflation.
People were scared. There was confusion about what to do about government on several levels. And the opportunists seized the moment. Ronald Reagan caught the ear of millions of Americans by telling them that the problem with government was that we simply had too much of it. History showed that his answer was to create even more government and borrow a lot of money to do it. In a world of fear, making government the bogeyman appealed to many no matter what the reality was.
You know the type. They’re the ones who will fight to the death for the marketplace to rip $4 out of your pocket for every gallon of gas and fight just as hard against the government’s attempt to make the great gas giants ease off.
Why? Because it’s about money and freedom, these folks say. It’s about your money and your right to do with it what you want and your right to tell the government they can’t have any more of it. As if you want to pay $4 for a gallon of gas or $2,000 a month for private health insurance. They then turn around and fight valiantly against a $5-a-month tax hike for libraries, like the one that was just defeated here in Aurora.
The Colorado Union of Taxpayers, which ventured to Aurora this fall to fight Ballot Question 4A (which sought to raise property taxes to preserve the library system), scoffed at asking voters to pay the paltry $5-a-month tax hike on a $200,000 home, saying it had nothing to do with libraries.
Really? Well guess what? It does now. Aurora will immediately be closing four of them across the city and lay off about 100 library employees. And that’s just the beginning. The city is plum out of money. Rest assured there will either be more layoffs, closures and cutbacks yet to come, or more requests for increased taxes to keep what we’ve got and to keep the Colorado Union of Taxpayers fighting mad.
Five stinking bucks a month. That’s nothing compared to the hundred or so dollars a month your health insurance is about to jump if you work for a small business in Aurora. If you work for a bigger local company, the sting won’t be quite so bad because it’s your friends at local small businesses that are taking the brunt of the price hike. Likewise, in the last few months, your monthly gasoline bill just went up about $30 a month, depending on how much you drive. Even scarier is what you’ll see in your Xcel Energy envelope in a few months. Paying five bucks a month for libraries will seem like a real lark compared to paying a few hundred dollars a month to keep your thermostat at a roasty-toasty 65 degrees.
Do you think you’ll see the throngs from the Colorado Union of Taxpayers down at the Public Utilities Commission demanding protection against those hikes? No way.
Instead, the fear will spread like it did in the ‘70s and again in ‘80s after the oil bust and again just after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. We’ll demand that government stop spending money and allow our streets and recreation centers and libraries to wither and deteriorate and close. The skinflints and curmudgeons will show that no matter how the times change, the economic laws of being penny wise and pound foolish are immutable. We will either pay now, or we will pay dearly later.
It was the Owens administration, organizations like CUT, and their revered leader, Douglas Bruce himself, that brought you a state with infrastructure only barely rallying that of a third-world country, all for the sake of a few tax “refunds” and a hold on taxes.
We got what we paid for. How’s that working for you now? A crumbling Interstate 70, the mine fields along Havana and missing snowplows in southeast Aurora aren’t working for me.
Clearly, the times call for caution and frugality. But be careful now, Aurora. Don’t lose sight of a similarly rocky economic past that plagued Aurora with a city full of shanty-quality, three-story walkups for the sake of economic development. A past that cheered a reduction of government services at a time when people needed them more than ever. A past that has left Aurora, the state’s third-largest city, wondering why two identical houses in Lakewood and Aurora are worth so much less in Aurora.
More than ever, we need to work as a community to ensure that history does not repeat itself this time.
Dave Perry is editor of The Aurora Sentinel. Reach him at 303-750-7555 or dperry@aurorasentinel.com.
We’ve been down this road before many times here in Aurora and all over Colorado. When I was in high school here in the 1970s, unemployment was even higher then than it is now. The entire country was in a deep recession, struggling with the Arab Oil Embargo, aftershocks of the Nixon price and wage freezes and runaway inflation.
People were scared. There was confusion about what to do about government on several levels. And the opportunists seized the moment. Ronald Reagan caught the ear of millions of Americans by telling them that the problem with government was that we simply had too much of it. History showed that his answer was to create even more government and borrow a lot of money to do it. In a world of fear, making government the bogeyman appealed to many no matter what the reality was.
You know the type. They’re the ones who will fight to the death for the marketplace to rip $4 out of your pocket for every gallon of gas and fight just as hard against the government’s attempt to make the great gas giants ease off.
Why? Because it’s about money and freedom, these folks say. It’s about your money and your right to do with it what you want and your right to tell the government they can’t have any more of it. As if you want to pay $4 for a gallon of gas or $2,000 a month for private health insurance. They then turn around and fight valiantly against a $5-a-month tax hike for libraries, like the one that was just defeated here in Aurora.
The Colorado Union of Taxpayers, which ventured to Aurora this fall to fight Ballot Question 4A (which sought to raise property taxes to preserve the library system), scoffed at asking voters to pay the paltry $5-a-month tax hike on a $200,000 home, saying it had nothing to do with libraries.
Really? Well guess what? It does now. Aurora will immediately be closing four of them across the city and lay off about 100 library employees. And that’s just the beginning. The city is plum out of money. Rest assured there will either be more layoffs, closures and cutbacks yet to come, or more requests for increased taxes to keep what we’ve got and to keep the Colorado Union of Taxpayers fighting mad.
Five stinking bucks a month. That’s nothing compared to the hundred or so dollars a month your health insurance is about to jump if you work for a small business in Aurora. If you work for a bigger local company, the sting won’t be quite so bad because it’s your friends at local small businesses that are taking the brunt of the price hike. Likewise, in the last few months, your monthly gasoline bill just went up about $30 a month, depending on how much you drive. Even scarier is what you’ll see in your Xcel Energy envelope in a few months. Paying five bucks a month for libraries will seem like a real lark compared to paying a few hundred dollars a month to keep your thermostat at a roasty-toasty 65 degrees.
Do you think you’ll see the throngs from the Colorado Union of Taxpayers down at the Public Utilities Commission demanding protection against those hikes? No way.
Instead, the fear will spread like it did in the ‘70s and again in ‘80s after the oil bust and again just after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. We’ll demand that government stop spending money and allow our streets and recreation centers and libraries to wither and deteriorate and close. The skinflints and curmudgeons will show that no matter how the times change, the economic laws of being penny wise and pound foolish are immutable. We will either pay now, or we will pay dearly later.
It was the Owens administration, organizations like CUT, and their revered leader, Douglas Bruce himself, that brought you a state with infrastructure only barely rallying that of a third-world country, all for the sake of a few tax “refunds” and a hold on taxes.
We got what we paid for. How’s that working for you now? A crumbling Interstate 70, the mine fields along Havana and missing snowplows in southeast Aurora aren’t working for me.
Clearly, the times call for caution and frugality. But be careful now, Aurora. Don’t lose sight of a similarly rocky economic past that plagued Aurora with a city full of shanty-quality, three-story walkups for the sake of economic development. A past that cheered a reduction of government services at a time when people needed them more than ever. A past that has left Aurora, the state’s third-largest city, wondering why two identical houses in Lakewood and Aurora are worth so much less in Aurora.
More than ever, we need to work as a community to ensure that history does not repeat itself this time.
Dave Perry is editor of The Aurora Sentinel. Reach him at 303-750-7555 or dperry@aurorasentinel.com.
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Reader Comments
The following are comments from the readers. In no way do they represent the view of aurorasentinel.com.
neilc23 wrote on Nov 6, 2009 9:02 AM:
" I'm not so sure that the issue is $5 per month, so much as the arrogance of our City Council.
Although I voted for the increase, here are my points of contention:
1) There was absolutely no written or verbal detailed justification for the increase.
2) There was no mention of the overlap between the fabulous County libraries and Aurora's.
3) There was no analysis presented to the public regarding library usage.
Despite my misgivings concerning City government, I still voted 'Yes' for the bill. Why? Because I felt a 'responsibility' towards the education of our posterity more than my 'right' to spend my money as I saw fit. Classic Etzioni. I have never believed in 'absolute rights'. That's only for crazies.
My biggest complaint with American styled liberals is that they have little if any appreciation for the financial aspects of governing, until it's too late. My gripe with conservatives is that they have far less sense of social responsibility than mine. And my major complaint with our middle of the road Americans is that they're far too silent. "
Although I voted for the increase, here are my points of contention:
1) There was absolutely no written or verbal detailed justification for the increase.
2) There was no mention of the overlap between the fabulous County libraries and Aurora's.
3) There was no analysis presented to the public regarding library usage.
Despite my misgivings concerning City government, I still voted 'Yes' for the bill. Why? Because I felt a 'responsibility' towards the education of our posterity more than my 'right' to spend my money as I saw fit. Classic Etzioni. I have never believed in 'absolute rights'. That's only for crazies.
My biggest complaint with American styled liberals is that they have little if any appreciation for the financial aspects of governing, until it's too late. My gripe with conservatives is that they have far less sense of social responsibility than mine. And my major complaint with our middle of the road Americans is that they're far too silent. "
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Grywolf20 wrote on Nov 5, 2009 2:36 PM:
The $5 a month is not the full issue to all of us who voted against this bill. The issue is that the bill was based on inflation in the future and we would have little say in the future costs, if any say. City Council intentionally neglected the libraries over the last 10 years. Not that we have been in a recession for 10 years. The City Council made the Library ISSUE a CRISES and no longer just an issue through their action and then tried to BULLY the Citizens into approving a 12.5 million dollar increase. Why was the figure so high? Why did the city not ask for an additional 4 or 5 million dollar increase? They already had about 7 million dedicated to the libraries. When you looked at this issue, the City never gave us any idea what the money was to be used for. If I went to my Boss and asked for a 12.5 million dollar increase in my department budget, my Boss would ask me what I needed it for and he would not accept the statement (like the City gave us) my department has had budget cuts and been neglected for 10 years. He would have said what we said, what will you buy with the money. The City never came out and gave any itemized list of what the money was to be used for, of how they came to the conclusion that they needed 12.5 million dollars. Had the City come out and said we need to buy 35 computers, re-carpet 259,000 square feet, re-roof 2 libraries, etc, then we might have understood what the money was needed for. This City has left the needs for this 12.5 million dollars to the imagination of the public. When we were in a drought, the City said we need to build a new reservoir so the city will have enough water next time. Many people made the mistake of thinking the original part of the City would get more water with the new reservoir, but all that water will never be seen in downtown Aurora. The current Citizens paid for new water for the future NEW residents East of Interstate 470 and not a drop for the people on the West side. So in the next drought old Aurora will not have any more water than it had in the last drought. The city says it is not their fault the citizens misunderstood that the new reservoir was only for the new future people. So, now that we have learned, give us a budget with what they will buy and maintain with 12.5 million dollars and we might consider voting again. Fool me Once Shame on You. Fool me Twice Shame on Me
Oh, and I am not any part of the Colorado Union of Taxpayers, I am just an average Citizen trying to survive in THIS ECONOMY. "