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May 24, 2007
Local Community Enhancements
I would like to take this opportunity to thank the taxpayers in Tennessee (including visitors — y'all come back now) for providing a giant budget surplus this year. Your benficence has allowed our elected representatives to pick a list of projects to which their names will forever be attached, and to spend up to a hundred grand (thrice that for Senators) on them.
I would also like to thank some conservative-leaning websites for requesting that the details be made available to the media. Though this little exercise involves mere chump change compared to the billions spent annually through regular votes, and one could thus assume that there's a touch of publicity-seeking in the demands for documentation, the principle of allowing citizens to clearly see how their tax dollars are being spent is here construed as the overriding motive.
So, the requests are revealed, and the focus of this post will be to highlight a few of our local delegation's line items. In case you're from out of town, or simply decline to pay attention, the House delegation comprises Reps. Tommie Brown (D-28), Jim Cobb (R-31), Vince Dean (R-30), JoAnne Favors (D-29), Richard Floyd (R-27), and Gerald McCormick (R-26).
Rep. McCormick divided his request evenly toward four high schools (Central, Hamilton County, Hixson, and Ooltewah), meaning that each will receive $25,000.
Though many residents of the Two-Seven may refer to it as prosciutto instead of pork, here's what Rep. Floyd brings them, whether they need it or not: renovations for a children's park in Lookout Mountain; a senior citizens building in Red Bank; money for the Soddy-Daisy Library; and athletic facilities for Signal Mountain Middle and High schools.
Rep. Brown dedicated a cool fifty G's to the opening of a new Community Development Center, which local Democratic Party chairman John Bailes says "would help in transforming a prison into an enterprise center." Other recipients include the county Juvenile Court, Girls Inc., Boys Club, and Ballet Tennessee.
Rep. Favors also helped us donate to local boys and girls clubs, plus establish a sculpture garden on Brainerd Road, build a "walking trail with wellness stations and kitchen facilities," start a Dodson and Glass Street Beautification Project, and create a historical monument in Renaissance Park.
Rep. Vince Dean, the former mayor of East Ridge, apparently forgot that District 30 includes other areas too. All of his funds are allocated to East Ridge institutions, with the largest chunk going to Camp Jordan Park. I have serious reservations about this whole thing, but the other representatives at least seemed to be a little more geographically fair in utilizing it. (Full disclosure: I reside in this district, but not in East Ridge.) Oh, well. I know Rep. Dean doesn't owe his next re-election to my precinct in any way whatsoever, but the East Ridge Senior Center? That's a gold mine of votes.
Rep. Cobb, whose district also includes Rhea County, primarily split his allowance among volunteer fire & rescue departments, with the balance to parks departments and community service providers.
Well, there you have it. The full document is available via the Tennessee Center for Policy Research.
Government | By joe lance | 9:42 PM