6 MEMBERS VOTE TO RAISE TAXES FOR RANDOMLY-PLACED SWIMMING POOLS, OTHER POORLY-PLANNED NONSENSE

I think this is the first time that I have directly addressed the goings-on of the Richland County Council because, until now, I haven’t really cared. But The State newspaper reports that they approved a $50 million taxpayer-funded pork project to “to replace aging parks and build new facilities in fast-growing areas,” and I am justifiably pissed off.

The wording of the proposal put a hard cap on the cost to taxpayers of $12 per year for the owner of a $100,000 house. Currently, that same taxpayer contributes about $7 per year to pay off an existing recreation bond. [...]

The 6-5 vote on the bond — which does not require a referendum — came after heated discussion about the process for deciding where to spend the money. Council members Norman Jackson, Damon Jeter, Val Hutchinson, Joe McEachern, Joyce Dickerson and Bernice Scott voted in favor of the bond. [...]

Those on the other side were more vocal, complaining about what they perceived as a lack of planning for where projects would be built. Council member Mike Montgomery, arguing for a thorough needs assessment, noted that $5 million in projects were added to the proposal in the past week.

“How are we as a council going to approve a proposal that locks us in for 15 to 20 years when the plans are so fluid that it changes this much in a few weeks,” Montgomery said.

One of the late additions was a swimming pool for the revamped St. Andrews Park. Rather than determine where swimming pools were needed, “we just put a pool where we think it’ll get the rec bond passed,” council member Kit Smith said.

Don’t get me wrong, parks are great, but I agree with The State’s editorial page editor Brad Warthen that there are about 50 million better things for Richland County to spend that money on.

But the last thing they need to do is raise taxes to build a bunch of swimming pools that no one will use. Especially when they admit that they don’t even know where they’re going to put them.

“We just put a pool where we think it’ll get the rec bond passed”… What the hell kind of rationale is that? And more importantly, which of these six is benefiting from it… and how?

This project is completely irrational, impulsive and inefficient. The six members of council who supported it, five Democrats and one Republican, had absolutely no justification for the project and have now given voters every justification to boot them from office.