SPEAKOUT

Thursday, December 26, 2013

Selling point points wrong

Homeowners beware! Selling the recent bond issue proposal as an affordable investment should be appalling to Sikeston property owners. The proposal on average would raise property taxes 24 percent. What if all of a sudden or grocery bill or utility bill went up by 24 percent? The median rent in Sikeston is $374. Guess who gets to pay 24 percent more on their rent? Forty-four percent of the people in Sikeston are renters. It is not fair to compare our district to others. Risco School District chose not to consolidate with New Madrid County Central. This causes them to distribute the cost of education over a very small population, which brings up another point. Comparing Sikeston to Cape, Jackson and Poplar Bluff is not fair. Cape population has increased 9 percent, Jackson 18.7 percent and Poplar Bluff is up 3.1 percent. They are distributing the cost of education over a growing population. Sikeston's population has decreased 4 percent over the same time span. This should be insulting to use the construction of property to withstand and EF5 tornado as a selling point for this proposal, especially in the aftermath of the Moore, Okla., event. Absolutely no one wants to see their children injured or killed by any method or as a result of anything. More students from the ages of 5-19 die or are injured by sports related injuries, traffic accidents going to and from school and suicide than from weather-related events. There has been one student death in the state of Missouri from a tornado since 1928. Using this a selling point borders on unethical. To pass this proposal puts the burden of a shrinking population on the homeowners. Why not scale this back to necessities and propose a sales tax that would distribute the burden equally? For the property owners who live outside the district, guess what - you get a 24 percent increase on your property tax and you cannot vote.

Does my opinion count?

Are you people out of your minds? You want us homeowners to vote yes on a bond issue giving ourselves a property tax increase. First of all, what person in their right mind would vote to increase their property taxes? I'm on a fixed income and there's nothing affordable when it comes to increasing my property taxes. I read Boardman's cost of opinion numbers on housing values. Those numbers would be good if the economy is stable, all homeowners have a good sturdy income and the cost of living was going down, which is not the case. The Board needs to rethink how they contemplate on paying for the school facility improvements. Don't put it on the backs of homeowners.