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Rollingwood OKs using half of RCDC funding for street maintenance
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
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The Rollingwood Proposition to use half of the sales tax funding dedicated to the Rollingwood Community Development Corporation for street maintenance passed by a narrow margin of 30 votes.
While Election Day results came in opposed to the proposition, 150 to 139, it wasn’t enough to override early voters who came out in favor of it, 99 to 53, for a total tally of 238 to 203 or 54 percent to 46 percent.
“I was a little disappointed we didn’t have a better turnout,” Mayor Dale Dingley said. “We usually have more than that. Maybe there just wasn’t enough on the ballot that interested people.”
The RCDC currently has about $500,000 in its bank account and receives a sales tax check of approximately $14,000 each month. This figure will be divided in half beginning Jan. 1 as the other half goes into the dedicated street maintenance fund.
“One of my main concerns was the fact that a lot of residents may have felt that was a mechanism to repave our streets,” Dingley said. “That will cost us an estimated $1 million. If we collect $84,000, it will take 10 years before we can repave.”
It figures Mayor Dingley will be negative about this. What a surprise. Does he ever agree with what the majority of citizens want? What did he expect to achieve with his $16,000 budget for street repair? He criticizes his own actions and then criticizes those who try to fix his mistakes. The RCDC has a huge amount of money that it will keep and that amount will continue to grow well beyond what it needs to fund any and all of its projects and continue to thrive.
Our city needs to take care of important issues and this ballot item was taking a very common approach that most cities have no issue with. Leave it to a negative Rollingwood mayor and his cohorts to make it into a ridiculously negative issue.
It is time for a change of “leadership”; someone positive and in sync with the needs of our community.
Last month Mayor Dingley wanted to raise property taxes on top of the more than 10% increase in valuations. Mayor Dingley spent nearly $400,000 of our money on a parking lot just last spring but was unwilling to dedicate that money to our streets against the will of the people. He spent more than $6,000 of taxpayer money on a tacky park monument against the wishes of most citizens.
Strange how Mayor Dingley now says it will take us 10 years to repave our streets. Why did he ignore the taxpayers when we told him to pave our streets last spring? It seems the mayor should listen to the taxpayers and NOT VICE VERSA. We would have half our streets paved by now. We can do the math.
Take responsibility for your actions Mr. Mayor, and support and work WITH your council NOW.
That is your job.
Low voter turnout?
How many voted on the street tax proposition? 441
How many voted when Mr. Dingley was elected mayor in 2008? 415
How many voted for the street tax proposition? 238
How many voted for Mr. Dingley for alderman in 2007? 183
How many voted for Mr. Nalle for alderman in 2008? 195
Is a turnout of 45.47% of registered voters a low voter turnout?