Here is my first of many posts to inform you of my opinions on the issues I feel need to be dealt with in our town. The first one is taxes.

TAXES - unfortunately we need them to pay for community services. I believe, however that the town of cumberland has over stepped a reasonable rate. I have been saying that we pay as much in taxes as e would in Carmel but we do not have the amenities that they enjoy. I arrived at this statement by calling the Hamilton county auditors office. Every conceivable business is within a couple of miles for the inhabitants of that town, but we have very little in Cumberland and a town council that has resisted new businesses wanting to open here. Take for example, Autozone. The company made all the changes that the town requested but were still turned down. We need a commercial tax base or our own property taxes will continue to rise like the 30% we had a year ago. Some may not like autozone for various reasons but we have a muffler shop with a broken concrete and dirt lot and a machine shop with disabled vehicles in their lot, so what gives.
We have before us a state government that is looking allowing local municipalites to institute either income tax or sales taxes to pay for town operations but will that mean that they will be getting rid of property tax or just a false promise to give relief that they have never followed through with (check the article in sundays indy star - section e focus 1/21/07). They have made promises before only to ignore them and go on.
Note too, that the town and our district councilman voted in favor of a 6% raise for themselves and town employees for 2007.
It also strikes me as odd that everyone is talking about changing how we are taxed and being given some relief but no ever talks about reducing spending as a way to reduce taxes. You and I run our households on a budget and know that we can not keep spending more than we bring in with out disasterous consequences. Which leads me to another topic in my list "competitive bidding for town contracts". I will share my thoughts on this subject in a subsequent post.