To the editor:

Reading about the tax increases being sought in order to balance the city’s budget for 2011 causes me much frustration.

I have had to know how much money I have to spend before I spend it. Why should the city be any different?

The city wants to increase the taxes on my home for which I worked a full-time job and a part-time job and rented two bedrooms out following my late husband’s death. This was not an easy time for me. But I have been working since I was young.

My first job was babysitting children for other hard-working families, and I did it when I was old enough only to play with the children to keep them out of trouble. I worked at a local general merchandise store while I was in high school to get the things needed for school. I worked in a department store until my first child was born, and I would take this baby with me to collect for the newspaper, which my husband delivered on Sundays in addition to his other job.

We were never paid a minimum wage. We paid our Social Security and into a retirement system when we finally had more permanent jobs. My husband died at the age of 57 years and never drew any of his retirement nor his Social Security.

We did not ask for nor receive handouts.

Now, however, if our city, state and federal government continue to set raise taxes to fulfill their bloated budgets, when we have not received raises in our retirement income in three years, we may have to ask for welfare.

I ask the city council to remember this: Some of us struggle each day to pay, and we want to be able to continue to pay for upkeep and care of our homes and our health.

I hope council members will search within themselves to find ways to stop increasing our assessments, stop raising our taxes and stop finding other ways to increase our taxes, including trash fees, clean water fees, more taxes on utilities, and more taxes on our health insurances via greater prices for our health coverage.

Mary Grace Garner-Atkins
Suffolk