Forum: If Everett were an employee, would it get a 44% raise?

By David Rash / Herald Forum

Secretary: Mr. Everett is here for his appointment.

Mr. Public: Please, send him in.

Good morning, Mr. Everett, you are here for your performance review. Please sit down.

Mr. Everett: I am glad to be here this morning, because I think I have done such a terrific job that I deserve a 44 percent raise in my property taxes. This would only amount to $28 a month for a $500,000 house.

Mr. Public: You do realize that according to Zillow through March 1 the average price of a home in the city was $647,000? Also, you do realize that general inflation is only running about 4 percent, so how can you justify such a large ask?

Mr. Everett: Well, among many other things, I am investing in pallet shelters for the homeless; I want to tear down a significant historical structure and replace it with a dog park; I have doubled the number of marijuana licencees in our city; I inaugurated a city Pride Festival; and I am adding four new positions to the seven-member city mental health team, so we can have an alternate response program (thus, when you call the cops, you get a social worker instead).

Mr. Public: Imagine my astonishment to hear you celebrate this appalling litany. You do realize how you (and everyone in government) are twisting the meaning of the word investing? Normal people think of investing as using their money to earn interest, but when you say investing, you mean spending. And do you realize that a basic law of economics is that when you spend more on something you get more of it: thus, when you spend on pallet shelters for homeless people you attract more of them to the city. Homelessness is a problem of drugs, crime, and mental illness, not a shelter problem.

Now, I’d like to ask you how many 103-year-old historical structures there are in the city? Right, not many. So, when you tout the notion of tearing one down and replacing it with a dog park, I am skeptical. Nobody hates Lassie, but shouldn’t parks be for kids and families? Shouldn’t the historical heritage of the city be preserved for future generations?

I notice that in recent years you have emphasized public safety and adding police officers to the payroll, and yet you doubled the number of marijuana licenses in the city, which thoughtfully allowed crime to flourish in every neighborhood, while contributing to increased traffic accidents and fatalities and the dumbing down of the populace. This is called cognitive dissonance.

Wow, did we need to pay for a Pride Festival? Are you sure everyone is on board with that as a smart use of their tax money? And who exactly is proud of what exactly? Should we be required to spend our tax money to support the agenda of a small segment of the population with which we may disagree? Wouldn’t you say this borders on compelled speech: As the Supreme Court has stated in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette (1943): “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.”

Now about all those mental health counselors? Do you really think the city needs seven of them? Do you want to call the cops to your house and have a mental health counselor show up instead? It appears from the city budget that these positions can earn from $86,892 to $113,040 per year, and the manager can top out at $148,000 per year. Yikes! Seriously?

And speaking of money did you know that according to Ballotpedia as of a 2015 survey the average spent by the 100 largest cities in America was $2,605 capita yet our city’s proposed budget pencils out to $3,842 per capita. Quite the discrepancy on the high side of spending.

So, my question to you, Mr. Everett, is why the hell don’t you cut spending? How do you have the audacity to ask for a 44 percent raise? In fact, you don’t pass this review; and you’re fired!

David Rash lives in Everett.