The God of the Machine

Aug 21

Written By Kathy Bence

or

“Much hooey about wooey”

by Brian McNary

“Along Yant Flat Trail” by Lori Cole

I couldn’t help thinking about this book last night as I watched our August 19 city council meeting. The “God of the Machine” is a wonderful text written by Isabelle Paterson in 1943. Ayn Rand called it the greatest masterpiece of the last 300 years.

For many years, I headlined a little home made blog and used a quote from the book as my subtitle. I believe every word of that quote. It goes like this.

“Most of the harm in the world is done by good people, and not by accident, lapse, or omission. It is the result of their deliberate actions, long persevered in, which they hold to be motivated by high ideals toward virtuous ends.”

The other quote which captures tonight’s meeting comes from former Speaker of the House, Tip O’Neill.

“All politics is local.”

With those two quotes in mind, here then is the big council recap.

The big recap & a surprise

Remember, this was going to be a council vote on the hefty 30.3% property tax hike. There were 8 people present. One was a deputy sheriff. The other was our new Culture and Recreation Director. Her name is April Smith.

April introduced herself and did a very nice presentation about all of the city events that Toquerville sponsors each year. Those include the 4th of July celebration, Trunk or Treat, Movies in the Park, Wreaths Across America. April included the cost for each. April seemed like a sweetheart and an appropriate choice for this sort of position. I was stunned as I listened to her presentation. I had never heard of this position, anywhere, nor can I find any talk about it in any previous Toquerville Sentinel posts. Please remember that one of our citizens stood up and spoke about our community events at the Truth in Taxation meeting and that Toquerville spends 77,000 dollars per year on these events. We were holding a meeting last week that was focused on spending and tax revenue shortages.

Not one peep last week from anyone on the council about this new position. Perhaps it slipped their collective minds when they were boo hooing about revenue shortages and raising taxes. Of the 77,000 budgeted for entertainment, 45,000 of that is budgeted for salary.

So when you feel as though you have been blind sided, you will know how I was feeling. Moving right along…

Code enforcement or lack of it

You might think I am making this up but the next topic was code enforcement and our lack of it. Code enforcement generally costs money. It seems Toquerville has money for entertainment but not code enforcement. Mayor Catlin even mentioned that if we didn’t enforce our ordinances then we didn’t really have ordinances. I think he said we had 10,000 earmarked for code enforcement. It is anyone’s guess whether that gets expended.

It gets better.

Wooey tax

I hate acronyms so when I hear somebody say a term which sounds like “wooey” I try to remind myself that these are adults tossing an acronym about. Wooey is actually W.U.I. which stands for Wildfire Urban Interface. This is another state sponsored money grab wherein they are trying to convince us that wildfires could burn all of our houses down and there are some days when I wish that would happen.

This incidentally, is why I pay taxes to the county, to the state, and to the Feds for firefighting. It is also the reason I pay for homeowners insurance. So maybe, in the 45 years I’ve been sending it in, I will reap a benefit. But in lieu of that, we now have an additional tax, the “wooey tax.” The wooey tax is 20.00 per year for a house up to 3000 SQF, 60.00 per year for a house up to 6000 SQF, and 100.00 dollars for a starter mansion. I have no idea how they are going to bill this. I assumed some more property tax would take care of it. There was also talk about how we can mitigate this pending wildfire disaster by planting trees and pruning them and other nonsense. I had about 50 questions regarding the wooey tax- like who would be subject to it. Would that be existing homeowners, new homeowners, or anyone with a sagebrush nearby. But the time for public comment had passed and the presenter of this new purgatory tax left before the meeting was over. I planned an interrogation. He wisely fled. I am told his name was Dave Harmon.

I nearly titled this piece, “I don’t give a hooey about wooey.”

Property Tax hike

Here is another spot where I’d like you to think about the God of the Machine quote. We have arrived at that time when the council finally began to discuss the property tax hike. There was some back and forth about legal expenses, road repair budgets, and the 50k economic development budget. There was no talk about new hires or the raises staff received this year. In the end, the council landed on cutting the 50k earmarked for business development. This is an item that would attract the businesses most useful to Toquerville rather than letting chance decide the outcome.

In the end, the council cut the economic development budget. Councilman Olsen wanted to cut additional money from the legal budget and the city attorney seemed to agree. That discussion went nowhere. So instead of a 30.3% hike, we ended up with a 14.9% hike despite Joey Campbell thinking we should round it back up to 20%.

a mayberry thing

The next item was that old water tank on the hill. Nobody really seems to know who owns it or who is responsible for it. It’s a Mayberry thing. So even if it gets carved up and scrapped, we will still have an easement on the property. This was the only, really entertaining and non threatening part of the meeting. If only Chester was still here.

Solara’s annexation

Solara, that gawd awful development situated 1.2 miles north of Leeds, submitted an annexation petition.

Wayne Olsen commented that he did not care for the way Solara tried to bully us into making concessions contrary to our ordinances. I agree. I was in attendance during that pitch and I will always remember the pitchman saying that he didn’t care whether Solara was annexed or not. I was thinking “good” at the time. Wayne Olsen formed a motion to deny Solara’s petition. It did not get a second. What Olsen’s motion did reveal was where the current vote stands. A new motion was made to accept the petition. The vote was 4-1. I invite you all to read Michelle Peot’s post on Solara and use a fair amount of reading comprehension. I have personally read the post, at least 4 times, with the reference links. I would also like to remind you that the Solara parcel is the same parcel with one of the same owners, repackaged from the original ARC development. That development as you will recall, caused our Mayor to resign in disgrace with a slap on the wrist. The council is moving it forward as though they have no choice in the matter.

Firelight & hillsides

Firelight asked for a couple of hillside development permits to carve up some small frontages containing 30 degree slopes- which was granted. I didn’t get too worked up over that. My feeling at this point is, “What’s a little more ruined terrain and landscape?” In lieu of pictures or an actual site inspection, I will assume it was accurate.

USPS chopping block

There was some discussion on saving the post office in Toquerville. It may be on the USPS chopping block as the USPS tries to cut costs and close locations that can be condensed into larger ones. There was also some discussion on what to do with a parcel of land that was gifted to Toquerville which is in St George and largely unusable. Tax ID W-227-E. Council then adjourned for another closed meeting.

The Big Finish

We started the Toquerville Sentinel a little over 3 years ago to keep an eye on what our Mayor and City Council are doing. Many times you have heard me whine about the task. It is thankless, time consuming, and becoming confrontational.

For 16 of my 24 years, I worked with budgets. Bloated line items, duplicate entries, unspent money each year. I know where the skeletons are and how they are used. The city has plenty of money at present and I will bet you a Harley I could pore over their budget and find a few cost saving measures. Government has no interest in saving you money. Each fiscal year, they simply reload line items knowing they will receive some more tax money. They aren’t like a business cutting costs and increasing margins. They are the opposite. They bloat costs and shrink margins and they never, ever, worry about going out of business. I am familiar with line item budgeting along with a few other types of budgeting. I did this for a living, year after year, once upon a time.

Government at it’s very best is supposed to represent the citizens and not waste our money. Government at it’s worst spends our money, hides facts, creates excuses, and sometimes- even breaks the law. The decisions that are being made right now are the decisions Toquerville citizens will live with for the next 100 years.

Ten years from now, many of us will not be here. The only thing that will be here is what we leave behind. I believe in the mission and I believe the Toquerville Sentinel was the right vehicle for keeping an eye on things. I believe that most people are good but that very often, they make mistakes.

That is why I introduced Paterson’s quote.