Can County borrow money for road repairs?
All the articles I read about this “Lake County Road Maintenance Benefit Zone Program” are all about the financial hard times that the county is having, nothing about the homeowners struggling with their financial hard times in this economic recession.
Some homeowners have already lost their homes ? other homeowners are struggling to hang on to their homes ? homeowners are also trying to meet their everyday family expenses as well.
Yesterday the price of a barrel of oil hit $120; this may translate to $5 per gallon at the pump. Food items that we all need just to survive; their prices have skyrocketed, and this recession is only going to get worse.
When our financial funds become stressed, and we can”t meet our financial responsibilities, who do we turn to for help? Guess what, we will lose something or we will get sued, or we can get a loan and pay it off. This way our family will survive.
Why can”t the county go in debt and borrow from the General Fund, and then the County can pay off the loan over time as we would have do? Instead of giving the Lake County Property owners the option to assess their own properties a dollar amount to pay off over a period of time the County”s loan?
It”s the County”s responsibility to maintain the County roads and to obtain the required funding to that end ?not ours.
We support the county with our tax dollars. And this is where the county should look for additional funds ? by increasing the County tax for all Lake County taxpayers.
The County officials should also plead their road maintenance concerns loudly to the proper State officials to get more funds or to get a better return percentage of the gas tax money. They need to get something changed or make something happen.
Incidentally, the City of Clearlake got funding for some of their road repairs without the need of a benefit zone.
Ed Smith
Kelseyville
