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I was not able to attend the Halloween parade although my family did and, as much as it will displease them and disappoint them, I simply cannot support the event going forward.

In short, this event spends tax payer dollars, and as a tax payer and as the representative voice of the taxpayer, I can’t see how we can have a parade with squadrons of police and fire parading around at an event. We have other priorities in our city like infrastructure, fire hydrants and run-down housing stock than a parade. It is without question that taxpayer dollars are spent and why should I, as a taxpayer, have to support this? We have seniors on fixed incomes who can hardly afford their homes and yet we support and even applaud efforts such as this. To what: give free candy to kids! It’s par for the course for this socialist and communist administration.

Furthermore, the Elks, as a non-profit pays no property taxes in the city thereby sucking taxpayer dollars from taxpayers like me and countless others. Why can’t the Elks pay for their own police and fire without asking me the taxpayer.

Before you criticize my viewpoint as fringe or outside the mainstream, let me turn you the comments made on the last community event–the Spring FLing– which required police and fire services and let’s see how they portrayed the event and its organizers( compliments of the Venner Vox):

Dan,

[snip] are you serious because you may not understand the City budget has everything to do with the ability to have a spring fling, clean up the City and beautify it. Hello we as tax payers pay for those things or do you not know what taxes pay for! Maybe if you knew what line items are for in budgets and how it sets money in place to be used towards the things you mention.

[snip]

As long as you bring it up, the “volunteers” were paid by the mayor and there were more cops present than I thought we had on the force. Which I don’t criticize because it was a fine community event. But it certainly wasn’t free.

Also keep in mind, I don’t have the local AM transcripts so you can assume an amplification of the above there as well and on other channels as well.

In fact, the “outrage” generated by Spring Fling and its cost to the taxpayers as espoused by the usual chorus reached such a convergence of demagoguery, misinformation and outright stupidity that it forced local bloggers covering the subject to conclude as follows:

Charlie Kraebel: Do I really need to pull out the padlock on this thread? Honestly, what does the Spring Fling have to do with the budget proposals being considered by the Budget Review Committee?

Dan Weaver: Note: Hopefully this is my last word on this subject. I was unable to post this on Venner Vox last night because by the time I got home, Charlie had locked the door on commenting. I don’t blame him. Comments are closed on this post also!!

My question to you is simply: why the double standard here? Why not the huge outcry against the Elks and their organizers? Indeed, it seems they are being lauded profusely for this event even though by any measure the level of police and fire resources greatly exceeded that of Spring Fling. Why is that?

Why are my pleas as a rather snarky taxpayer being thrown by the wayside when I’m making the precise argument of those against Spring Fling?

I don’t think it’s too tough to figure out.– just look at the cast driving the rhetoric and the cast of the respective event organizers. Simple as that. Imagine if the same standard would apply to the Elks as other organizations such that the Elks and supporters of the parade were cast as the folks involved in Spring Fling. The True Amsterdamians would riot in the streets.

Just don’t remind the “protectors of the taxpayers” that the Elks are a not-for-profit and in the words of a local True Amsterdamian, does a non-profit just “suck tax dollars from local taxpayers’ pockets”? Where is the outrage for that?

Or the “outrage” of paying for a police presence at the homecoming parade? Let’s apply the same standard to the homecoming parade and see how the politics of that decision stack up against your principled stand for the “interests of the taxpayer”.

I’m sure in the next few days, the outrage against the Elks and homecoming parade will flood the blogs and airwaves .

You betcha’!

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