(Todd Taxpayer Bailey) – According to the Reno Gazette Journal, last night, the Reno City Council took the final step to create the NEWEST layer of local government, the Flood Control Authority. What does this mean to the residents of Washoe County? YOUR taxes are going up, by at least $520 million dollars. Local officials who wanted to start this new super agency are promising over one billion dollars in Federal money, however, there is no Federal money, so far.
Under President Obama’s spending freeze, there is a very strong chance that Federal money will not come through. So that means the entire $1.6 billion will be paid by you, the Washoe County Taxpayer. This isn’t new, you’ve already been paying for it over the last ten years through your sales taxes, and now government officials are saying that’s not enough.
There will be new restrictions on where and how you can build your home or business and what you can do with your own property. You’ll have to answer to a powerful Flood Control Authority, run by career bureaucrats salivating to enforce rules they’ve been trying enact for many years. Now they can.
While politicians will claim otherwise, the new Flood Control Authority is not consolidation, there will NOT be fewer government employees, there will be more. Unbelievably, employees at the Flood Control Authority are collecting between $10,000 and $15,000 per month on the backs of taxpayers, with the top salary being $16,600 a month.
Ironically, the Reno City Council, on the same day, authorized the layoff of police and fire employees, despite the pleas of citizens not to. It’s a question of priorities, and Flood Control Authority comes first.
Unfortunately, even with all this money and all the new rules, if Mother Nature decides to deliver water that is just inches above where the Flood Authority is predicting, Washoe County will have another flood anyway. The Flood Control Authority is not making any promises, they just want $1.6 billion and the ability to make new rules on what you can do with your own property.
This might be a good time for the Republicans For Reid to get on the phone and start collecting for their support. After all, that’s why some members of the Reno City Council supported Harry Reid, because he can do so much for Reno, Sparks, Washoe County, and Nevada. If that phone call does not pay off, it will be the Taxpayers of Washoe County that will do the paying, $1.6 billion.
(Todd Taxpayer Bailey is publisher of the Capital Chronicle.)
