"The Official Portrait of Miss InDiana"

"The Official Portrait of Miss InDiana"
aka "Miss Victory"

Sunday, August 5, 2007

Coalition of Neighborhoods Unhappy with City Council & Monroe Gray

NEXT PROTEST RALLY: Monday August 6th, 5:30 pm
Hoosiers for Fair Taxation, along with other activists, will meet at the City County Building to protest city government's runaway spending. Will will rally in front of City Hall at 5:30 and attend the city council meeting at 7:00. Word is that Bart Peterson will present the 2008 budget. We need another huge turn out to turn up the heat on our unaccountable elected officials. Bring you signs and your unmistakable message that we are not going away.


The Indianapolis Star
The powers-that-be at the City-County Building soon will be getting their comeuppance from the Marion County Alliance of Neighborhood Associations, better known as McANA.
The group's board voted last week to draft a public letter calling for greater transparency and accountability in how tax money is spent and criticizing the heavy-handed way the City-County Council treated the public at the meeting at which it enacted an income tax increase.

Several board members said they were outraged by what they saw, particularly the fact that Council President Monroe Gray cut off debate after a half-hour and wouldn't even acknowledge a proposed Republican amendment.

Tom Glass, a board member, called it "a despicable scene." Board secretary Jeanette Robertson called it "un-American."

McANA President Cathy Burton said she had been contacted by members of McANA who wanted the organization to weigh in on the council's vote to increase income taxes to 1.65 percent from the current 1 percent.
She said one man told her the council "brought (the income tax increase) into this world, and they can take it out."

But while board members didn't feel they should, after the fact, say whether the vote itself was right or wrong, they did want to acknowledge their displeasure with how the meeting was run, and their concern about tax dollars in general.

"It's my personal feeling that our government -- city, county, state, schools -- has not risen to the level of accountability I expect of them," Burton said. "They just need to do a better job of how they spend our money before they ask me to pay any more."

No comments: