We couldn’t wait to see last Thursday’s (Thursday, February 7, 2013) Council’s meeting on local access cable.
This is when the mayor promised a complete report on “Christmas in Alexandria”.
It comes as no surprise that the complete report was well, less than complete.
It was more of a mutual admiration society, recognize and heap accolades on the organizers and volunteers, let’s have a big group hug and sing Kumbaya.
Noticeably missing were any reports on the financials of the event.
There is a whole lot more required for a full report; such as how much money was raised and where did it go.
If you may recall this started out as an event that would be held at Village Green Shopping Center to benefit local businesses and with all profits going to charity.
It morphed into a change of venue and a somewhat a change in purpose.
We fail to see where it benefited a few if any city businesses.
It seems that the vast majority of vendors were from outside the city or outside the county for that matter.
We believe that the citizens of Alexandria are entitled to a full financial report and disclosure on this event.
After all, approximately $4500.00 of taxpayer’s money was earmarked for this event by the city’s elected officials.
After the austerity budget and a 4% increase in the property tax rate for the current budget cycle we feel an elected official’s pet project should not receive a dime of feel-good taxpayer’s money.
We hope that city council will not approve a new budget that includes an expenditure for something like this.
By now you have some elected officials that claim they didn’t know this was in the budget that they approved. It is one of their duties to know what is in the budget.
To be kind, the non-profit corporation that threw “Christmas in Alexandria, has received initial seed money and should have made enough to finance their next event. If not the city should not finance a looser project again regardless of what some elected officials want.
Some on council are already talking about how the city can increase revenues for the next budget cycle.
Watch out business owners:
We think you are going to be hearing more about a gross receipts tax that you were told has been forgotten about; and the property owner should not rule out the possibility of another 4% increase in the property tax rate.
A tip for property owners:
By the way the city may increase property tax rates up to 4% per year with no input or approval from you.
And to be fair, your newest council member did not take office until after all of this took place.
