Wednesday, Apr 21, 2010
Valley Citizen
It sure doesn’t feel like election day with these warm days and t-shirts making their seasonal debut – but it is. And it’s an important one – the primary election - where you will decide on two levies (roads and the hospital) and my seat as county commissioner.
No one likes to talk about taxes, particularly politicians. And I know the two levies on the ballot could not have come at a worse time. Teton County is recovering from a dramatic economic bust. People are out of work and families are financially stressed. What’s more, we have to consider them in light of next year’s school levy - by far the most important levy we consider.
These are hard times and we have tough choices ahead of us. When I look at my family’s bottom line, voting to pay another one to two hundred dollars a year in taxes will be tough. We’ll have to make sacrifices to do it.
Before you go to the polls though, you should know the facts about our roads and budget. Service demands increased nearly 300% on roads over the past 10 years and during that time we thought donations from developers would augment the budget – a budget with a $7 million shortfall. But donations did not touch that shortfall and we continued to use only state funds. Now, having gone from boom to bust, that trickle from developers has dried up. We still have the shortfall, no capital improvement fund and are losing our road infrastructure.
That’s the legacy we’re dealing with. The most compelling reasons to pass the road levy are economic. For one, we currently spend more money repairing roads than we would if we fixed them. By putting off capital improvements, we’re increasing the amount we will pay later. Secondly, because we don’t provide a 30% local match for the state funds we receive, Teton County is not competitive for state and federal grants.
As a commissioner the responsible choice was to put this to a vote – letting you decide what we do. As a parent, local business owner and financially strapped homeowner I understand the responsible choice for many residents may be a ‘no’ vote. It was hard to put this on the ballot, but as a fiscal manager for the county I’m concerned about how long we put off infrastructure costs; recognizing that putting them off only increases their price. It wouldn’t be responsible to leave it for the next generation or commission. Fortunately, the beauty of our system is that you decide.
We need a sustainable plan for the future – for our roads and our hospital and our schools. That’s what being a county commissioner is about for me. It was a tough decision to run again, but thinking about my family - our two businesses, our two kids and our future - I knew I had to. I’m inspired by our community’s potential. I see now as an opportunity to plan a future with economic growth and diversity, sustainable environmental policies and community planning that maintains the high quality of life that brought many of us here. I see a chance to keep families in the valley by making them the core drivers of community and business. I’d like to take advantage of our opportunity and would be honored to be your commissioner again. Please take the time to vote on Tuesday May 25th or vote now absentee, either way make your voice heard.
Kathy Rinaldi is a first term Teton County Commissioner and can be reached at krinaldi@co.teton.id.us
