Allentown Set To Increase Taxes in 2016

By now most living in Allentown already heard about a planned tax increase for 2016. If someone's not familiar with the proposal they can read about it HERE at Live Valley Live.com or for a short report HERE at WMFZ's site.

I'm not going into all the details. Anyone interested can read them for themselves. Instead I will point out a few concerns.(1) When the city leased out the water department to the Lehigh County Water Authority the city got a sum of money. At the time the city considered the extra $5 million left over a "windfall". Really a "windfall"? Instead of hanging onto that money the city blew through it. Coincidently the city now finds itself $5 million short. I'm sure most people (these decision makers included) understand a city can't hold the tax line forever. So why would you blow through that money!

(2) One thing politicians and departments heads all have in common is to make sure they spend every last dime in fear of having their budgets cut. This so they can whine and bemoan how tough things are and how hard they're working for us the taxpayers. This is just the case in this matter as far as I'm concerned.. We didn't absolutely need to spent the "windfall" in the first place.

(3) All the city is doing is rearranging the deck chairs when it comes to sticking it to taxpayers. Something politicians are notorious for. This is nothing more then kicking the can down to road which will come back to haunt us The budget is calling for robbing Peter to pay Paul via a loan from the solid waste fund with the intention of paying it back in increments in the years ahead. Common sense dictates if the city can't afford today's bills how the heck is it going to come up with even more money to pay that back?

(4) Then there's the water lease itself... a hidden tax. Instead of the mayor taking responsibility for increasing taxes he unloads Allentown's obligations via a water contract with the county. Inevitably they will be made out to be the bad guy instead of he when the county water authority raises water rates next year. The end results of which will be borne by every resident living in Lehigh County in order to cover Allentown's economic shortfalls.

(5) Finally there is this. Shortly there will be over one billion dollars of taxpayers' money poured into development for Allentown. How on God's green earth can anyone justify spending such a huge amount of taxpayers' money and still be seeing negative returns?