No relation between smart growth and high taxes

Staff

Published Saturday, April 29, 2006

It appears my last post here about smart growth and the tax rate has perhaps been misconstrued by some.

By all accounts, these are the two biggest issues on people’s minds as we head to next Tuesday’s election.

The incumbents and their supporters seem to be saying that the smart growth strategy would be imperiled if the challengers won. Challengers seem to be pinning their hopes on Suffolk residents having had enough of tax bills that increase by 20 percent a year.

While that may be the case, the two issues are not tied together. Just because one supports smart growth, it does not necessarily follow that they support higher tax rates. In fact, a good smart growth strategy should reduce the tax burden on residents in the long run n provided politically expedient exceptions to the plan are not allowed, as happened in Suffolk with the disastrous vote to open up the southern area of the city to development.

There’s no reason we couldn’t have both smart growth and lower tax rates. It’s just a fact that the four incumbents are supporters of smart growth, except when they don’t support it, and have consistently voted in favor of maintaining a higher tax rate than many residents seem to favor.

My point was that if re-elected they will likely to continue to do so.

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