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Commissioner DeLaney Just Isn't Listening
First, a correction: our article, two days ago, started out by saying that Paula DeLaney's meltdown happened on February 16th. Indeed, that was supposed to say November 16th.
 The day after Commissioner DeLaney so inapppriately used personal tax records to turn a swearing-in celebration into something that it wasn't supposed to be, she went onto the Talk Of The Town radio show, seemingly, to explain herself. You have to give her credit for that. I am sure that it wasn't an easy thing to do. Still, she only made matters worse. On the show, when asked by one of the hosts whether or not she looks up other peoples' tax records, she matter-of-factly stated that she looks up everybody's tax records. Her justification seemed to be that when somebody complains that their taxes are painful, it would be helpful to her to know just how painful they are.
First, knowing that your property tax records are being looked up, as you stand in front of Paula DeLaney, has a very chilling effect on the public discourse. How many people will now never giver her their opinion because they don't want their lifestyle or history analyzed by her and, possibly, be thrown up onto public display? It is very bad policy, for her to do such a thing.
Second, it doesn't really tell her anything about those people, anyway, unless you, as a legislator, are willing to set tax policy based on how much pain people can tolerate. Government just shouldn't be painful.
When someone with a $4500 tax bill goes in front of the county commission to complain about their taxes, the first thing on their mind isn't, generally, how much more of my tax burden can you shift to Urban Meyer or Billy Donovan. The first thing question they have is how much money did the county put into the basket weaving class, the composting class or the Advanced Storm Spotter class that it is hosting for citizens on December 9th. Some argue that these are important things. Many argue that in these very bad economic times, those just aren't essential services of government. The county manager or the spokesman for the county may try to tell you that those classes don't cost the county anything, but everything government does has a cost.
The real question is not how much burden can we shift from one person to another. The question isn't about how much of the $400 tax bill can you transfer to the person with the $29,000 tax bill. The real question is how to make government more accountable so that we can get the $400 tax bill down to $200, and the $29,000 tax bill down to $24,500 (or less). Imagine the economic activity that would be created if we did that!
Easy to say but hard to do, right? Maybe not. Let's look at a specfic example of how we are going horribly wrong, right now, in county government. The Sheriff and the County Commission are $500,000 apart, right now, on the Sheriff's budget for the next fiscal year. Sheriff Darnell spent $700,000 less than was budgeted for the last fiscal year. She has turned that money back over to the county, but they won't let her use $500,000 of it to close the gap that she believes that she has for the next fiscal year. The message: spend everything you get, even if it is wasteful, because we won't let you utilize your savings in future years.
No matter how you look at it, that is bad government.
The voters asked Paula DeLaney to start looking at things, differently, but her response was to put a few of those voters on public display and show us all, as boldy as she could, that she didn't quite hear us.
To see the video that everyone is talking about, and to tell us what you think, go to:
http://www.firepauladelaney.com
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