Your vote is your voice

Current Mayor Joan Peck wrote a letter in the Longmont Leader entitled Your Vote is Your Voice. It's basically an explanation for why the 3 ballot measures are on this year's ballot. It's because YOU dear voter wanted them there.

I don't disagree that voters want these amenities but one of the things about representative government is for the government to do what is right and not always what is expedient or "what everyone wants".

Here is where, as mayor, I would say - "Excellent - go for it!" Instead our city decided that there were so many things that citizens wanted they created a survey:

To overcome this dilemma, the Council directed staff to create a survey listing a host of projects that could be ranked in order of preference. The survey was distributed on many social media platforms including the City website and local newspapers. Council chose the three choices indicated by the survey to refer to the ballot and included a transparent funding source for each.

1 - It's a survey listing a host of projects to rank. Not a survey saying "would you like your taxes raised further so we can take from your neighbors to give you x, y or z?".

2 - One of the cities priorities is being equitable, yet all the ways that they asked people to rank their preferences are ways that mid-upper class people with a strong interest in local politics spend their time. Yes, I have the city on my X feed - I am unusual and I know that. Most people don't even get a newspaper. How was this survey equitable?

3 - It doesn't matter. It isn't right to take from Mia who is caring for an infant, and one in school along with a disabled spouse and aging parents to pay extra tax so I can have a rec center. It isn't right to take from Alex who is a single roofer who sends extra money to his sister somewhere else to help her care for his parents to you can have a performing arts center. It isn't right to take from Meg who supports mental health programs she believes in and has found helpful so you can have an extra library that you think is good for mental health. etc, etc.

We each have stories and we shouldn't have to explain ourselves to the taxing authorities who are wanting to take what we earn.

What part of this is tricky? These taxes are immoral, inequitable and should not even be on the ballot.