“All politics are local.” Apparently our local Tea Party leadership doesn’t understand the true meaning of this phrase. They have reached out to a national political organization funded by the billionaire Koch brothers to fund their fight to vote down the proposal for a property tax.

They have conflated the concept of over-taxation by the King of England with our beautiful town’s real and present need to significantly increase our revenues to pay for law enforcement, fire and safety and road maintenance (much of which cannot be funded by bonds). Each year for the past five years, the town’s financial officer has well documented the growing gap between town revenues and town expenditures. The town manager and staff (especially the Community Services Department) have done a remarkable job of keeping our town afloat with over a 50 percent reduction is staff!

The council has been tilting at windmills in a valiant but fruitless effort to find the significant economic growth required to make the town solvent again. The latest effort was a very professional study by a highly regarded consulting firm which recently presented the results of their exhaustive study to find the economic growth needed. Their presentation left no doubt.

The only solution to pay the bills is a fair and equitable property tax. Any future economic growth we can expect is quite limited. There will be no Walmarts in our future. We should continue to work on increasing the incremental economic growth available, but it is time to pay the piper; pay now or pay later!

This is not a conservative/liberal issue. Many local conservatives understand this and have spoken out in support of what is best for Fountain Hills.