Republican Moline City Government to raise taxes, cut services

The council will meet Nov. 5 to discuss a long list of possible service cuts or tax hikes, including:

• Closing the downtown library, which has experienced declining usage. Two library assistant positions and one library associate’s post would be eliminated as well for a cost savings of $197,360.
  
  
• Creating a special service area for Bass Street Landing, reducing city costs by $69,000.
  
  
• Increasing property taxes by 10 cents from the current levy of $1.91 per $100 of assessed valuation.
  
  
• Turning the crossing guard program over the school district for a savings of about $125,000.
  
  
• Increasing the sewer rate by 8.2 percent, or about $5 per quarter for the average residential customer.
  
  
• Creating a utility tax or sanitation fee, increasing the food and beverage tax, or levying a tax on alcohol or gasoline.

“Please understand, if raising taxes was not an option, services would have to be cut,” Steinbrecher told the council in a 13-page budget memorandum. He said revenues have not kept up with increases in wages, retirement benefits and health-care coverage.

Public Works Director Mike Waldron called the automated trash collection system “pay as you throw.” Residents would be allowed one refuse container for free but would have to pay $45 annually for additional, 96-gallon containers. Customers also would be charged a $45 annual disposal fee for each additional container.

With the automated system, a robotic arm on the side of the garbage truck clamps onto the container and dumps the trash inside. The trucks can be run with one worker instead of two and saves on personnel and workman’s compensation costs.

Sanitation worker Alex Sierra spoke against the proposed change. “It’s political suicide. You’re going to have an angry mob down here.”

“We have a Cadillac service and now you’re trying to change it to a Ford Pinto,” city union president Kaye Whitley added.

This is a big deal. The automated system will be a hardship for the elderly and others who simply can't maneuver the enormous standardized trash container to the curb. It will also eliminate many city jobs, which seems to be contrary to all the hundreds of thousands, if not millions of tax dollars that the city has seen fit to dole out to subsidize business and development primarily for the stated reason of creating jobs. (though many of the hand-outs were for real estate projects which created nothing but profits for the developers and no jobs whatsoever after construction. I guess all the supposed tax revenue that was supposed to flow from such huge subsidies just didn't cut it.)

Moline already has sky-high property tax rates, high hotel taxes, and with many struggling to afford gas, this is JUST the right time to raise gasoline taxes. That would drastically hurt every station in Moline, as people would simply go elsewhere for their gas.

Once again, the so-called party of fiscal responsibility has managed to spend Moline into a deep hole with no good way out.

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Related note... the Moline leave sucker-uppers are out on their rounds looking for almost non-existant leaf piles. Get those leaves to the curb.