Some Orlando-area cities snuff out proposals to imposes fees fo...

For the City of Sanford there is a estimated 4 million shortfall from Amendment One for next year (2009). There are also plans to spend 3 million on bricking the remainder of First St. And another 3 million to be spent on Fort Mellon Park. Holding off on these two projects will more than make for any loss from Amendment One. Now brick streets and a fancier park are all well and good when the economy is prospering. But to bait the taxpayers with this tax cut and then to turn around and try to shove it to them another way is ludicrous. Sanford City Government need to reign in it's own spending. The amount of salary budgeted for the Administrative and Governance has increased by more than 90% since 2005, budgeted salary for Human Resource for the City has gone up 160% since 2005, budgeted salary for Sanford Public Works has gone up over 95% since 2005, and Information Technology budgeted salary has gone up by more than 170% since 2005. When the amount of money coming into my house hold decreases, I limit my expenditures. I do not demand that my employer shell out more money. And the taxpayers are the employers of the people who comprise this City government. And there is a proposal to slice the promised increase in police officers by 50%. And this, at a time when an ever increasing amount of homes and vehicles are being broken into and residents are robbed at gunpoint in their own yards.
And back to the bricking of First St, this quite possibly will be a death knell to some of the First St merchants. Many of them now are just barely keeping their head above water, despite the Mayor's assertion that they are thriving. Many are now having zero days, meaning that there are days when they have no sales. We have two or three restaurants that are doing well and that is the summ total of the "thriving merchants". And to continue with yet ANOTHER project to tear up the street that leads to the downtown shopping district and as a result expect that a consumer is willing to wade through a construction zone to shop is sheer idiocy.
Sanford City Government, WAKE UP, earn what you are now taking from us!!! I and a lot of other residents would not mind paying a little extra, if we felt we were getting any value for the money we are now paying.

It needs to be noted that on the first go-around Mayor Linda Kuhn was all fro imposing this "fire fee". It was not until a long stream of citizens spoke at great length against it that she changed her tune.