$.0075 Sales Tax Hike for Roads?

I agree the property owners have been taxed
to extinction, but a general increase in
sales taxes where everyone pays is better.
Everyone uses the roads. Secondly why dont
we recieve more help from our county.
Bakersfields streets are better maintained, its
like all other services we have minimal at best.
The money stays on the other side of
the Sierras.

I’d be happy to allow all roads to return to their former bare dirt status. People would drive slower. This would greatly diminish gasoline consumption and folks would enjoy the scenary. Pretty soon we’ll be at $5 a gallon anyway,so prepare yourselves for what’s coming. When gasolinme hits $4 people will celebrate Christmas and Thanksgiving with colored paper ornaments,microwaved popcorn and a cooked pigeon. 4th of July means you strike a match and yell whoopee. I would’nt give the government my used unmentionables much less money.

Fred, with all your ramblings, are you sure you are not still under the influence of the drugs you supposedly took in the 60-70’s?

Hello all the Ridgecrest People. This is Vice Mayor Tom Wiknich.
I really do want to hear everyones concerns about this initiative. Right now we need $100 million to bring our roads back up to date. And that number goes up every year we do nothing. While many will speculate on all sorts of gimmics politicians pull with our money, and I agree with that, I assure you that the tax initiatve we put on the ballot WILL have a 10 year STOP clause, will have SPECIFIC projects (so we can’t do whatever we want) and will have no general fund component, meaning the money MUST be used only on roads. These conditions will be written in the initiative, and be law if approved by the voters. NOTE: Ridgecrest gets ONLY 6 cents per dollar of the property tax you pay. And for those that wonder where their tax dollars are already going? Ask Sacramento. They constantly are reducing what they distribute to counties and cities to fund entitlement programs. Ridgecrests MAIN income source is sales tax. And for those that try and compare us to back east cities, being from Ohio myself, I know what you are asking about. BUT, in Ohio, we had a personal INCOME tax at the city level we paid. We also had a sales tax, county tax, state tax, Federal tax, transit tax, and every type USER fee for water, gas, sewers, fire, police, and more than that. And my property tax rate was MUCH higher in Ohio. Here we have no personal income tax for the city and we get no income except one user fee, which is for sewers. Our main sources of funds is sales tax and transit occupancy tax, which no one pays except those that use our motels.
I agree we ALL pay alot in taxes now. And it pains me as a fiscal conservative to ask you to support this tax. But Ridgecrest only gets the scraps of ALL those taxes we pay. And we have NO power to change that. Until we change Sacramento, this is our only hope. We have to take care of ourselves. Or we will have those dusty dirt roads someone said we should just let the roads go to. I don’t believe the majority of people will want that. Please keep the comments coming. But please provide comments we can use to improve the city. Or any other ideas where we can raise the millions we need would be great too. I want to hear serious and doable ideas. I care about what you say.
God Bless our troops serving overseas. Sincerely,
Tom

This may sound absurd but why do we have to send any money to Sacramento in the first place? Tell Sacramento we will send them whatever we have left over after we take care of ourselves first. What could they do? Stop sending us the little amount back they do now? What services are they really providing? What are we getting in return?
Maybe if every city and town joined in, we could send a huge message to the “State.”

I have another comment: Why is there a huge expensive electronic sign erected at the intersection of China Lake and Bowman Road? No one has time to stop and read what’s scrolling across and it’s surely a distraction for those trying to get safely through the four way stop. The money could’ve been better spent on the road full of cracks prior to the sign…

What I’d like to see are unannounced traffic stops in Poison Canyon leading in and out of Trona. Everyone gets their breath checked for alcohol and snarling drug dogs romping thru their vehicals. There’s so many drunks and dopers driving thru Poison Canyon it’s ridiculous.

I read in the paper they have grants for sidewalks in Norma street region. Lets talk norma its atrocious
from multiple repair patches it needs new
surfacing. Just because we pay for a tax
doesnt mean the moneys used wisely they
hire multiple engineers opinions instead
of finding streets and fixing them. The money
wasted for the enginering firms for round about
for Mr Fallgetter could be used for our streets.
and

Daily, interesting that you bring up tickets. Where does that money go anyway? I know used to be we’d kid that towns needed extra money so they put the cops out to collect money in the way of tickets. How many times have you seen speeders, illegal passing, etc., in Ridgecrest and no policeman in sight? Good idea, maybe we’d get some extra $ that way, plus better driving conditions all around.

I would’nt vote for a tax increase even for a kevlar vest for Jesus on the cross.

First off use real asphalt Not desert mix. Then get people that know what there doing. And yes when someone comes in and cuts up the road they need to repair it to what it was. As far as the increase in tax…Ah what the heck where paying 4 bucks a gal. for gas and nobody’s staying home. Also Stop shotting down NEW building for Big companies that want to build here.

I am going to say alot about alot before getting to my point but please Im sure that I am not the only one that feels this way.
I am disgusted and fed-up with how the leaders of this town are letting this city become a melting pot for low-income families and minimum wage jobs just so that they can protect their interests(businesses). Seriously how far up your ass does your head have to be to think that a Super Wal-Mart is going to do anything to this commmunity other than put a financial strain on any other grocery store or department store along with bringing in hundreds of more low-income jobs, because we need more of those. Im sorry but I dont want to live in a community that you have to be packing a ccw just to walk down the street.
This town needs money to fix the roads along with many other problems that its having then why the hell did they spend so much money on a chevy HHR so the police could have a car to enter into car shows. If anything they should have bought more equipment or hired more officers. Maybe the Vice-Mayor Tom is correct, maybe we do need 100 million dollars to fix the roads, if this is true Tom then WTF do the city officials shoot down things like the prison and more power plants? Yeah lets not bring in companies that will pay their employees an average of 55K a year along with medical and retirement benefits. Companies that would boost the entire cities economy. Ooh..Ooh..I have an idea lets let not only another Wal-Mart come in but a Super Wal-Mart at that. A company that at most pays their employees 2-3 dollars more an hour than minimum wage so that we can flood the community with low income families and low income apartments. Great Idea! Or here is another one obviously you guys know nothing about construction, remodeling or even planning for that matter. If you dont have the money to remodel the whole house then what do you do?? Stumped huh. Ill tell you what you do, you start with one room at a time or one thing at a time. How about we take the money that we are already getting and fix one road at a time. Something is better than nothing. Im sorry people but let the leaders of this community blow smoke up someone elses ass, dont let it be ours…..