I really do not like saying “I told you so”.
But $64 million dollars and recent events pulled by the County Commission.. warrants the use of such a phrase this time around.
The Gwinnett County Commission spends $64 million dollars… then threatens to raise taxes. Gwinnett tax payers revolt and the Commission backs off.
The Gwinnett County Commission spends $64 million dollars, threatens to raise taxes and then when they don’t get their way they take matters into their own hands to stick it to citizens to cover their screw ups.
The Gwinnett County Commission spends $64 million dollars and announces the following:
The County will eliminate more than 250 jobs by the end of the year. Employees will not get any raises in 2010, and staff reductions will even hit the Fire and Emergency Services Department as well as Gwinnett Police, where approved positions will be reduced from 740 to 687, back to 2003 levels. Internal support departments have been directed to cut personnel by 15.4 percent and overall costs by 9.6 percent, on average. Parks and Recreation will cut staff costs by 9.1 percent.
Transit operations will be cut by 21 percent and express service by six percent. In addition, Constitutional and elected officials have been asked to reduce their 2010 budgets in light of the County’s financial challenges.
So, the Gwinnett County Commission spends $64 million and puts our safety, welfare and security at risk and just adds to an already growing unemployment rate. Oh sure.. the stadium is adding a few jobs… but lets face it.. the majority of those are part time at best. Some income is better than no income I suppose.
The Gwinnett County Commission spent $64 million dollars to build an stadium to bring a AAA baseball team whose average attendance ranks next to last in the International League.
Worse of all… the Gwinnett County Commission spent $64 million dollars when there were more important and pertinent matters that money should have been used for. Remember 287g? Yea thats probably not going to happen now. Crime rates increasing? Yea, thats probably because we don’t have the police presence around the county we should have. Slow response time to a fire or medical emergency? Yea… a baseball stadium for a AAA team was more important when their Major League affiliate is just about an hour south.
Now the county has failed to get naming rights to the stadium because – SHOCK! – the economy doesn’t support such extravagance right now. Don’t forget… the taxpayers were never supposed to have had to fit the bill for this. How did that turn out?
