Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Issue 17 Down in Flames

Given that the issue faced no organized opposition and that the low off off off-election turnout should have tipped the issue to a good GOTV drive, this is an impressive asskicking:

From the BOE

Issue 17 - City of Akron, Income Tax
Vote For Not More Than 1
(WITH 153 OF 153 PRECINCTS COUNTED)
AGAINST THE INCOME TAX . . . . . . . . .11,489 . . . . 66.02
FOR THE INCOME TAX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5,913 . . . . 33.98

Bottom line: the mayor just didn't make the case. When friends to the left as well as the right vowed to vote against it, clearly the campaign was in trouble. For myself, I am just so bone tired of cities and states being held hostage by companies for handouts in the name of jobs, I just couldn't see fit on this one.

I think the case is strong for a tax about half the magnitude to replace lost state and Federal monies. I hope that's where the city goes.

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

no what would make sense would be for the levy to actually go towards paying for more cops and fireman, not having the largest chunk for some poorly defined concept. The 3 people I know that voted no did so for this reason.