
{"id":18104,"date":"2011-05-12T12:17:15","date_gmt":"2011-05-12T16:17:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=18104"},"modified":"2011-05-12T12:22:43","modified_gmt":"2011-05-12T16:22:43","slug":"budgets-taxes-and-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2011\/05\/12\/budgets-taxes-and-you\/","title":{"rendered":"Budgets, taxes and you"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Carrboro is lucky to have long had a town manager with his feet firmly planted on planet earth. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s unlucky, though, that his recent budget presentation is also his last, since he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll retire later this year.<\/p>\n<p>Steve Stewart understands that times are tough for many, even in our relatively affluent community. He knows that there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no real relief in sight, so the budget he brought to the board of aldermen last week was his third consecutive one without a tax increase.<\/p>\n<p>But what about the future? While Stewart says he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s working to enable his successor to present a budget without a tax increase next year, he cautions that expenses are such that a revenue increase will likely soon be needed. <\/p>\n<p>There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the rub. Obtaining that revenue without raising taxes would require an expansion of our tax base. Since the economic recovery that would allow such an expansion is proceeding at a glacial pace, one has to wonder if the tax base we have now is what we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to have for years to come. <\/p>\n<p>Multiple projects have been approved for Carrboro\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s downtown, and, if we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re lucky, we may see the hotel and parking deck components of the 300 East Main project break ground later this year. But three other building projects seem to be on indefinite hold, and all bets are off as to when or if they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll materialize. <\/p>\n<p>Which leads this discussion to you, the taxpayer. Without a growing commercial tax base, the burden will continue to fall increasingly on your shoulders. So you need to think seriously about how you want your town to spend your money. <\/p>\n<p>The board of aldermen has a public hearing on the proposed budget every year, but attendance is often surprisingly low. This year\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hearing will be held Tuesday, May 24. Since this is your chance to let your leaders know what you want in the way of expenditures for your town, don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t miss it. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Season of the tick<br \/>\n<\/strong>It almost feels like a plague is upon us. That insidious little creature, the tick, seems to be everywhere we turn. Ticks fall from the trees, they crawl up from the grass and they catch a ride into the house on your dog.<\/p>\n<p>Leapt up from the bed at 3 a.m. lately to remove one of the nasty things? Yes, we have too. Still scratching that bite from two weeks ago? You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not alone. Most everyone has a tick story these days.<\/p>\n<p>Little ones or big ones, ticks seem to be inescapable unless you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re wearing a space suit or have bathed in DEET. <\/p>\n<p>Statistically, only one in 1,000 ticks in our area carries Rocky Mountain spotted fever. Those sound like pretty good odds, until you consider how many millions of ticks there must be in our little slice of the Piedmont right now. And since a neighbor had a nasty go with the fever just a few days ago, the possibility of meeting the wrong tick doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t seem that far-fetched anymore.<\/p>\n<p>The moral of this story? Examine yourself daily, and check or treat your pets frequently. And to steal from an old song, check the one you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re with.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Taxes and ticks&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18104"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18104\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18163,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18104\/revisions\/18163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}