Robbing Peter to Pay Paul in Cherokee County
$ Poor Governance by Municipalities Affect our Wallets & County Funds Negatively $
Taxes are not a fun subject. As the old saying goes, there are two things that you can not avoid, death and taxes.
For those that don’t know, it appears that your tax dollars are being wasted by Cherokee county using SPLOST to fund day to day operations of local cities. Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) became a method for financing needed capital projects as you know. There are certain things SPLOST can cover and some things it cannot such as day to day operations. If you’d like to read more about Cherokee County SPLOST, here is a good document. Click here to read about Cherokee County SPLOST.
As example, the City of Waleska budgeted and approved to lose over $100,000 in 2 out of 3 services they are legally required to provide. You heard that right. The services are water, sanitation/trash pick up, and roads. At one point they were losing 7-9 million gallons of water a month, while raising rates 3 times this year alone. SPLOST funding is being used to make up the difference, meaning if you live in Woodstock, the other side of the county and have never even been to this little city with a 4 way stop, when you make a purchase in Cherokee county, you are funding the water and sanitation services this small little city is providing.
Why is this important?
Because millions of tax dollars are being wasted and no one from the county can do anything about it. The city is in charge of their own ethics and wrong doing. The Sheriff, District Attorney, Department of Audits and Accounts (DOAA) won’t touch it and neither will the Board Of Commissioners. Most city council meetings happen with no accountability. There are only the paid council members, Mayor, lawyer(s) and engineer(s) present. Who all, by the way, are getting paid bi-monthly to attend.
People that show up to meetings with questions are met with hostility and negativity. They have even had the attorney send certified letters of intimidation to normal everyday citizens of this county who dare to show up and search for the truth. It truly is a good ole boy system alive and well. It seems too entrenched and too big, like the city needs dissolving. Do we need 6 council members and one mayor representing 95 registered voters? That is way too much representation…. Especially considering the cost to county taxpayers without providing any benefits.
Did you know that the county also paved the Waleska city parking lot at city hall costing taxpayers $13k, instead of it being a SPLOST funded project? Have you ever made use of that parking lot? Why were county resources used? We have more urgent projects that need paving such as county roads.
Heck, we can fund robots, flock cameras, hellcats and local cities financial short falls but we can’t maintain county roads? Even with a $450 million budget? Outrageous! Cherokee is 20 employees short in the road department. Starting pay is $20 an hour. Who can afford to live close enough to either live here or commute here for $20 an hour with the current property taxes?
Sunshine needs to spread all over this issue. Several council members are up for re-election and we need opposition to step up. Please help. How can you do this? Start by subscribing to the CLER Scorecard Substack. That way we can collect your information and stay in touch. You can comment below as well.
We need change, voting red isn’t working…it’s going to take normal everyday people to step up and do what’s right because the uniparty is hard at work to destroy our county. Whether they are purposefully trying to destroy Cherokee County or not, they are letting it slip away. We must stay vigilant and push forward. the timing is right. The timing is now.
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We have a lot to be thankful for and our work is not done yet. We The People have to take back our local governments who have gotten too big. Keep seeking truth!
This needs to be sent to Better Call Harry at channel 46 see if he can initiate some movement. For future reference on any SPLOST in the future always vote no because of the way they are set up. We probably live in a county of glorified criminals.