Listener: Abilene’s street maintenance correction notice

Pratt,

Let me put it bluntly on behalf of all the citizens of Abilene and Taylor County. This correction letter addressed to the “City of Abilene Utility Customer” is kind of demeaning I think. Are we citizens, or are we customers? The revolving definition of who we are to begin with is a bad error for any city official to make. We are not the city’s customer. I’m not sure we are even citizens anymore? I feel more like a servant than a citizen. We are not indebted to our local city government because they think so. That’s wrong! Look at the intro in the next paragraph of the letter.

“Based upon your residential use of the property at…” My use of the property? What? The wording here seems a little demanding too me. Here’s my opinion about all of this city overreach into our wallets. This whole street maintenance débâcle is nothing more than a boo-boo tax. They screwed up. They gambled away millions and they lost! Even all the consecutive years of tax & user fee increases cannot make up for all the poor planning and financial incompetency of the previous mayor and city manager.

Let me state that in more clear terms. This tax is the product of the last 25 years incompetency running this city. The civic cheerleader crowd funneled money into cultural preservation and beautification projects instead of tackling our city’s basic infrastructure needs. They thought that spending dollars on the artsy-fartsy cultural affairs stuff would create a whole new progressive look for Abilene which would pay big dividends in the long run. That is what the new down hotel initiative is all about. It is a special people, special interest project funded by the citizens of Abilene. It’s wrong!

Oh, I don’t want to hear any more “hog wash” about how x,y, & z were  so instrumental and dedicated by serving the community. Oh yeah, such selfless dedication blah, blah, blah. Shoot! I call it self-serving your ego and devout dedication to the civic cheerleader club in Abilene. That’s what it is.

I would like to call for Robert Hanna’s resignation. I would like to see Mayor Williams call together a special city council session to discuss hiring a new city manager who has only one thing in mind. Drain the COA swamp and start cutting the fat! The “tax-us & spend-us” mindset has metastasised in the city of Abilene. It is time to cut it off, and kill it! Private enterprise can take over these special interest projects from there. My city has no business being in business for a group of special interest folks. It’s not working and the financial resources and overhead needed to sustain this ill-conceived effort will become untenable the near future.

JW

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