And more scandal

By the way, the Bradley County Finance Committee overruled County Mayor D. Gary Davis' proposed budget to give the above "agencies" more tax dollars in this year's budget. The main culprits in this kick in the face for fiscal conservatism are Matthew "Matt" Brown of Brown Stove Works, a retiring county commissioner for the 3rd District and William "Bill" Varnell of Hilliard and Lyons investments, the unseated 7th District Commissioner. Brown, a member of the Greenway Board voted to increase their budget 150 percent from $10,000 to $25,000 the year he leaves office and becomes unaccountable. This editor had considered praising the Greenway system in this issue for attracting more users but this show of self interest by Brown has tarnished the prospect. It really is disgraceful that Brown, who always preached fiscal responsibility while in office, should stick it to the taxpayer like this.

As well as the Greenway, Brown and Varnell seemed to have used their departure from office to reward the Museum Center at Five Points an increase from $10,000 to $20,000, Keep America Beautiful from $22,000 to $25,000 and increase MainStreet Cleveland to $20,000.

Bradley County at last has a mayor in Gary Davis who is at least making an effort to constrain spending to avoid a property tax increase, while Brown and Varnell see fit to undermine his and his staff's good work. Shameful indeed!

Cleveland taxpayers will be forking out $134,000 for land options for a new airport. This is to pay for the option to buy land and not the purchase price. Again I remind you that Cleveland Mayor Tom Rowland said repeatedly that no local money will be used for the airport, so being the man of integrity that he portrays, no doubt he will be reimbursing the taxpayer for all local expenditures. Maybe he could get together with the esteemed airport authority members and share the costs. Hey, even Brown and Varnell may want to pitch in. These are all people of integrity so I would not expect any less. 

That's what I think. What do you think?

Website Survey Results
.