County sales tax project list a shell game

Manatee County commissioners have failed to establish that they will be good stewards of a new county sales tax. To establish that they would be good stewards, the commissioners appointed a “blue ribbon” panel to study the issue and another “blue ribbon” panel has been appointed to make sure the money will be spent in accordance with the list the county administrator dreamed up and the commissioners approved on Aug. 23.

If anyone thought there would be town hall meetings for the public to have input into the selection of capital improvements, forget it! The elite county bureaucracy under Mr. Ed Hunzeker’s tutelage selected the projects and the commissioners rubber-stamped his list on Aug. 23.

So, can we now feel comfortable that our money will be spent wisely? Hardly.

I attended a meeting in June where I heard one of the commissioners describe how one officeholder had described that he did not need money for capital expenditures, rather he needed money for salaries. The commissioner explained how he could use the new sales tax money for his already existing capital needs; this would release money so he could spend it on his salaries. Very clever.

Undoubtedly the cleverness will not end here.

Many of the projects on the Aug. 23 list were already existing capital needs. The “new” money will be used to pay for projects that the county was already going to implement; the “new” money will pay for “old” needs, and release money which the commissioners can spend as they please.

Undoubtedly, the expenditures will be for the same purposes which the voters already rejected. The project list should have been for capital improvement expenditures in addition to existing capital expenditures. It is a shell game and the taxpayers are the victims.

This story was originally published October 7, 2016 at 6:34 PM with the headline "County sales tax project list a shell game."