“LIKE DRUNKEN SAILORS”

That is how one of the speakers at a rally today described how he feels the Lorain County Commissioners are spending tax dollars.

Amherst Councilman Nick Brusky organized today’s rally to get a 0.25 percent tax increase put on the November ballot. The Lorain County Commissioners voted last week to increase the county sales tax to offset a 3.5 million dollar cut from the state. Even though the increase would bring in close to 7.5 million dollars, the Commissioners have not decided what would happen with the extra money. Brusky has a tall task in front of him, to get the increase on the ballot he would need to obtain just over 10,000 valid signatures. A task he said he is up for.

Here are some quotes from today’s rally.

Garry Seaman, a member of the Local Liberty Committee
“The County Commissioners are calculating on two things to make this tax work, one, if the people of this county, if it was put before them in a vote would reject it. I think they are correct on that. The other thing that they are counting on is that the people of the county are too lazy and too stupid to do anything about that.” Seaman then directed the crowd’s attention to the new Justice Center behind him and said that is just one example of the wasteful spending by the county. “We have spent money like drunken sailors in the past 10 years and I apologize to all drunken sailors. They have shown no responsible leadership with our money.”

A line that drew the most applause was from Ashtabula County Auditor Sandy O'Brien. She said, “People, remember we are here today not to argue the merits of their claim that they need more money. We are here today as citizens and taxpayers in this county that we get the right to vote on any and all tax increases.”

Avon Lake City Councilman Marty O’Donnell
“People have a fundamental right to vote on this issue and I think that is an important situation that we have here. We weren’t given the right to vote, we weren’t given the right to give our input into the process on how the money was being spent, where the money is going. They had two meetings at 9 o’clock in the morning when people are working, so we were cut out of the process and I think that’s extremely unfair.

“Another issue, we have a 15 million dollar balance in this county. We have one Commissioner who doesn’t feel that this tax will be enough; the other two are talking about excess and giving the money back to us. That’s ridiculous; if you have excess and want to give the money back to us, don’t take it in the first place. The Auditor says they don’t need the money and it seems to me that there just seems to be general fiscal confusion of how the money is being used.”

The dozen or so people who showed up were given the opportunity to sign a petition and to take petitions to get signatures.