Saturday, January 22, 2011

U.S. Mayors Continue to Face Tough Choices

[That's John Dickert, Racine Mayor, in the bottom-right photo.]

Mayors See No End to Hard Choices for Cities. (The New York Times, 1/22/2011)

Excerpt: Many mayors have already raised taxes, cut services and laid off workers, even police and firefighters. Now they are girding themselves for more tough times, as falling home values are belatedly showing up in property tax assessments, and struggling states are threatening to cut aid to cities.

[snip]

"Taxpayers don’t want to keep seeing their tax bills go up,” he [Christopher Coleman, St. Paul MN Mayor] said. “But as unhappy as they are about that, try to close a library sometime.” [Emphasis added.]

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