Many long-time readers will remember that I formerly graced this particular page on a regular basis as editor of this fine weekly newspaper. I would have never predicted five years ago that I would actually show up again as an ink-stained wretch on the opinion page as one of your duly-elected Town Council members.

Enough of the small talk…my real topic here is the increased sales tax rate that a council majority approved Aug. 13 and becomes effective Nov. 1.

I did not take this decision lightly. I knew going in that some folks were not going to like this approach. Unfortunately, I almost felt as if my reluctant “yes” on the motion was forced on me by the community. “Incredulous!” you might scream. Stay with me here. I feel the voters forced the council’s hand when the property tax proposal was defeated at the polls. The numbers and facts were real at that time (no fake news!) and they haven’t changed. I truly believe the town has a revenue problem, not a spending problem.

It’s too bad that some people lump your Fountain Hills government into a wide net that includes government in general, as if all government is greedy, wasteful and bureaucratic. The municipal level is arguably the most accountable form of government. It’s small and easily accessible and basic in nature.

“Live within your means” some have said. Make budget cuts. While that always sounds good, it’s not quite that easy. The truthful answer is yes, we can always cut. But do we really want to do that? Hurt our quality of life, our level of services to residents? What should we cut? Would you have us cut all tourism efforts in our quest to bring more visitors and tourists to town? How about our economic development staff, working hard to fill those empty storefronts everyone points out? Maybe some parks and recreation staff along with a host of programming? Senior Center staff and events? Partially shut down the Community Center? If not those, then what?

Are these scare tactics? Hardly. We certainly can’t cut our levels of police protection or fire and emergency medical services. Or street maintenance and other infrastructure costs. We’re not closing a park or two. Severe cuts were made years ago in various departments and I, for one, do not want to revisit that traumatic scene. We want a vibrant community, and that takes a vibrant town government fulfilling all its core duties in a meaningful and economic manner. And that’s what we’re doing.

Some have argued we can “grow” ourselves out of this predicament by bringing more retailers to town and filling all the empty commercial space around town. Very doubtful. That is a long-term play, at best, and we’ve had mixed success over the past 50 years. And it doesn’t seem as if the community desires a large revenue-generating “project” or tourist attraction in the downtown area.

We needed to bridge the revenue gap immediately, and the three-tenths of 1 percent sales tax increase will do that to a certain degree. This truly is a small increase (I know, still an increase, I get it). It’s an extra 30 cents on $100 spent in Fountain Hills. The town’s revenues have remained relatively flat over the years, while costs continue to increase, especially in the area of public safety. I do believe staff that the town “has diligently pared down expenditures while preserving the core services and amenities that make Fountain Hills a desirable place to live.” It takes money to make this a desirable place to live.

We face a decreasing proportionate share of state-shared revenues due to increasing population of surrounding cities combined with negligible population growth here. The town’s revenue structure has always been a concern to me, long before I got on the council. I spent 32 years at the paper, so it was not difficult to see the long-term trends and the legitimate issues at hand, especially after the Road and Fire districts were dissolved and we lost their property tax revenues to fund those services.

Essentially we needed this extra sales tax revenue just to maintain the status quo (no big ticket items, no extra $6 million for street maintenance, etc.).

Our choices are severely limited in raising revenue. Some in the community have suggested maybe another property tax election, albeit for a smaller amount, say $3.5 million? We will have to wait and see how that plays out. I certainly favor lowering the sales tax rate back down if a primary property tax were approved by voters.

Since we could not implement the proposed public safety fee due to a legal threat, and we “zeroed out” the environmental fee this fiscal year, the sales tax increase really won’t generate all that much “new” revenue for the town.

“Trust” has been a major issue in recent years with the Town Council. I’m asking that you trust me when I say this slight tax increase was needed within the larger scope of how the Town of Fountain Hills operates and provides basic core services.