To the editor:

This past week I read that the city might impose a 1 mill levy to raise revenue; thus a $150,000 valuation would be an increase of $17.25. Not too long before that Commissioner Charles Jones suggested the county needed a 1 mill levy for some new “economic opportunity.” So now that is another $17.25. So tell me what I should not spend $34.50 on so that these two governing bodies can spend on what?

We are told to buy local, but as I visit with city and county employees – and the same is true of school employees – I am finding that these taxpayer-paid employees are not living locally. We are paying people who work for the city, county, and USD 497 to live out of the city and even the county. How much is being lost in property taxes and money not spent locally by these employees? The city has 800 employees, I am told. If true, what is the total number living outside of the city? The same question for county and school?

While waiting for that answer, I am still patiently waiting to hear the names of the private partners involved in the public/private partnership for East Hills business park and whether the $750,000 paid by the taxpayers for that farm from Miss Miller has ever been repaid from profits of sales of lots at East Hills. Surely these private partners have made their profit, therefore, why not the taxpayers get their profits back?

David Holroyd,

Lawrence