Tuesday, September 23, 2008
A Thoughtful Voice
Speaking of budgets, as we were in the post below, the Lakewood City Council got a very thoughtful anonymous letter recently. The letter is from someone who says they are a city employee who might lose their job if the coming initiative passes.
I thought this person hit some targets pretty darn well. I'm surely not saying by posting this note that I agree with all of it. Among a couple things, I don't at all agree with the part about raising taxes. And unless something has changed that I don't know about, the statistics disagree that we are a 'vice capital.' The more of the debate I hear, the more it sounds like to me that folks are making minicasinos a scapegoat for all sorts of nationwide problems ranging from addictions to failure to parent properly. But geesh, maybe I am the only person who thinks that. Clearly, because we have minicasinos in this town people think we have unusual issues right here in Lakewood city; that's a perception that simply must be respected.
Now having added a long qualifier ... I include the document because it's got a lot of thoughtful things to say, and especially for the second-to-last paragraph. The person makes a valid point that we need to take tough steps to get our city's core services off of gambling dollars. It reminds me of what I was trying to say in the post below. Assuming the letter is from someone who is indeed in danger of losing their job, this is a pretty impressive piece of work. I encourage you to read it.
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I thought this person hit some targets pretty darn well. I'm surely not saying by posting this note that I agree with all of it. Among a couple things, I don't at all agree with the part about raising taxes. And unless something has changed that I don't know about, the statistics disagree that we are a 'vice capital.' The more of the debate I hear, the more it sounds like to me that folks are making minicasinos a scapegoat for all sorts of nationwide problems ranging from addictions to failure to parent properly. But geesh, maybe I am the only person who thinks that. Clearly, because we have minicasinos in this town people think we have unusual issues right here in Lakewood city; that's a perception that simply must be respected.
Now having added a long qualifier ... I include the document because it's got a lot of thoughtful things to say, and especially for the second-to-last paragraph. The person makes a valid point that we need to take tough steps to get our city's core services off of gambling dollars. It reminds me of what I was trying to say in the post below. Assuming the letter is from someone who is indeed in danger of losing their job, this is a pretty impressive piece of work. I encourage you to read it.
