Spend & Tax
***So, the Davlin administration pushed for a huge sales tax increase, water rater increase, electric rate increase, and hotel/motel rate increases to grab up as much money as possible because freezing payroll, as the city council has suggested a few times in the last 6 years, wasn't necessary. With all of the added revenue, Davlin kept spending money, kept hiring more and more staff and has dropped the 'rainy day' fund from about $11M to $4.5M.
Thankfully, there are some on the city council who don't believe new taxes are the way to go. As Alderman Edwards said, with this economy, this isn't the time to raise taxes.
Now, Mayor Davlin is going to actually have to govern. In the past, whenever he needed to make a tough decision, he raised taxes or fees or rates and have enough votes to go along with his 'plans'. Of course, there might be some weak-kneed city councilpersons who give Davlin enough votes, but then the voters should punish those council members in 2011!
***The public hearing for the 'blue-ribbon' task force is tonight at 5:15pm in the City Council chambers. Thank goodness, the Mayor gave everyone about 24 hours notice for this thing...
***This is 'disgusting and disturbing' and apalling that people still believe this is appropriate behavior.
***Listen live to Kelm & Kirk and follow us on Twitter.
Thankfully, there are some on the city council who don't believe new taxes are the way to go. As Alderman Edwards said, with this economy, this isn't the time to raise taxes.
Now, Mayor Davlin is going to actually have to govern. In the past, whenever he needed to make a tough decision, he raised taxes or fees or rates and have enough votes to go along with his 'plans'. Of course, there might be some weak-kneed city councilpersons who give Davlin enough votes, but then the voters should punish those council members in 2011!
***The public hearing for the 'blue-ribbon' task force is tonight at 5:15pm in the City Council chambers. Thank goodness, the Mayor gave everyone about 24 hours notice for this thing...
***This is 'disgusting and disturbing' and apalling that people still believe this is appropriate behavior.
***Listen live to Kelm & Kirk and follow us on Twitter.
Speaking of MacArthur Park Apartments, I've been keeping track of reported crimes in Springfield with a Google Map. If the link below doesn't work you can go to my website and there will be a link there. I think you might find it amusing.
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=117305005308438470524.000446eb8fce764861021&z=11
Good Show!
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First, I think the guy at spfld.net just maps Police Beat from what I can tell. I'm not sure if people are aware of this, but the items in Police Beat only represent a small fraction of what actually occurs in the city, or the county, for that matter. So, it's not an accurate measure of crime or of where crime occurs.
Also, if I can throw in my two cents on something else here. I heard you guys Monday criticizing "journalists" and "journalism" today. However, you employ journalists and practice journalism at WMAY on a daily basis. Doesn't some of the fault lie with your own co-workers? If you think journalism sucks, change it. You have the opportunity right there in your hot little hands. Use it. Do your own reporting. Make calls. Analyze documents. Get out and interview people. Birddog your public officials. Uncover scandal. Be the watchdog you're supposed to be. It's a simple solution, really.
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I think you're right about the mapping of Police Beat and that the map doesn't give a complete view. But, this is a good start and wouldn't it be something if SPD did this as an on-going public safety service?
Regarding our comments about journalism, the folks who work for WMAY news do go out and find stories and interview newsmakers and provide a solid news source for the community. WMAY also provides commentary under the helpful title of 'talk show'. The problem with the AP story in City-State today is that it was an opinion column masquerading as a news piece. The SJR and other print media have a location for such items - the opinion section.
We don't have a problem with the AP putting out opinion pieces nor is it a problem for the SJR to publish them. However, the dividing line between the two realms has become excessively blurred especially with the 'reporting' of the Obama campaign. See Howard Kurtz in the Wash Post today: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/16/AR2008111602374.html?hpid=topnews
Thanks for listening!
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I think the SPD actually maps crimes. They've never shared it publicly, though, and I'm not really sure why that is. Seems that if you're going to go to the trouble of doing it, and spend taxpayer money to do so, you might want to share such information with the people who are paying for it. Call me crazy.
Props to any WMAY reporter who goes out there and actually digs up stories of their own, obtains and analyzes documents, stakes out public officials and does all the very time-consuming and budget-eating work it takes to do investigative reporting.
And, as a recovering SJ-R reporter, I will giggle privately to myself (in the most good natured way, really) as I read someone employed by WMAY writing about the line between opinion and news being blurred
Thanks for providing the forum for this discussion.
Sarah
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Giggling privately is boring....However, given my status as a talk show host and nothing else, I have to say that very rarely do the two - opinion & news - get blurred at WMAY. Leach, Kirk and Thoma all have news hats & talk show hats. Rarely do any of them allow their own opinions to bleed into news gathering or casting. Same thing goes for Bernie, for instance, who writes news articles and also has a column in Op-Ed.
The AP piece today and many, many like it, though, are not segmented into the appropriate media area - opinion.
thanks for the discussion!
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