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Show from May 1 to Nov. 1 because it is a luxury we cannot afford for the few riders we accommodate. I note the Public Safety budget was proposed at something like $670,000 and Chief Bell wanted to increase it to hire another officer because guess what? At the two-day Art Festival last year his officers were all so busy he had to go to work himself to investigate a homicide. Tough! I asked Mrs. Loble at a council meeting I attended two months ago just what our police budget was. She assured me it was under a halt ' million dollars. What happened in those two-intervening months that ! required accelerating last year's ' police budget of under a half million to $670,000 for the forthcoming year, even without adding another cop as Chief Bell requested? The "Resort Sales Tax" will be increased to help defray the cost of the buses. Where is the present Resort Sales Tax going? Green, Alvarez and Lewis told the state legislature it was needed to make tourists pay for the impact they have on the city. Well, the way to accomplish that is to get a share of the 8 or 9 percent room tax that hits tourists only. You don't do it by imposing a sales tax that applies to everyone in town. But the Resort Sales Tax the city has been joyfully collecting has not gone towards paying for the impact the tourists have on our roads, police force, etc. it's been going right into the coffers of the local Chamber of Commerce to increase tourism. I can only tell this city council that they have a short memory. I am confident that Alvarez and Lewis were defeated for reelection two years ago when it was brought to the public's attention that the city budget was $1.9 million when they went into office and had risen to $8 million during their tenure, with insufficient justification for such a horrendous jump for less than 3,500 population. Our 1985-86 budget just adopted 1 exceeds the 8-million-dollar budget j that toppled Helen and Tina. It ii- r time our councilmen refreshed tbvr & memories that the pocket of the hj taxpayer is not limitless. If we wrr,: our city government to giv iw everything we and they think '; h need and to take care of us from Urn cradle to the grave, they should ' stand up and tell us to go to prison or join the armed services where we would be assured of just that. Where are the pruning shears? Mary Lehmer Budget process is a mockery Editor: I commend John Miiller, executive vice president of Deer Valley, for taking his time to submit a well-reasoned four-page critique to the city council concerning the proposed city 1985-86 budget and to personally attend the public hearing on the proposed budget. He regretted that there was only a handful of persons present at the hearing. No wonder! Commencing with the administration of Mayor John Price in 1974, city council have made mockeries of public hearings. They conduct them whenever the law requires that a public hearing be held. They sit through the hearing because they must, then vote the way they'd already made up their minds to vote. This practice became so pervasive from then up until 1984 that people got wise and would no longer waste their time on a so-called public hearing that was a mockery. I agree with Mr. Miiller about the public bus system. Taxes and charges in this town have become so exorbitant, it is no wonder that a recent survey showed that more than half of the city's 322 employees lived out of town and than 48 percent of them did so because they could not find affordable housing in Park City. After all, landlords pass on to their tenants all tax increases, increases in water and sewer charges, etc. etc. so tenants do indeed bear their share of the multi-million dollar budgets adopted by the city council for a town with a miniscule population of under 3,500. I shuddered Sunday when I took my out-of-state visitor for a tour of Deer Valley and saw the city buses travelling around there empty. At 8:45 the next moming I shuddered again while picking up a friend in Holiday Ranch to see the city bus go by with one driver for one passenger. , The bus system should close down |