Alderman Steve Taylor’s stance on the 2012 City budget posted last month on his FranklinNOW blog “From the Fourth” read like a “good cop—bad cop” scene from NBC’s “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit," with Alderman Steve Taylor taking one for Mayor Tom Taylor while simultaneously throwing himself and fellow aldermen and Finance Committee members Tim Solomon and Kristen Wilhelm under the proverbial bus. Political ambitions take no prisoners.
Alderman Taylor writes:
[All emphasis added.]
The Finance Committee’s proposed budget which the Mayor has vetoed had a levy increase of 2.3% but savings of $35 on a home assessed at $235,000. Unlike the “shell game” which the Mayor boasts as a levy decrease the approved budget is extremely transparent with actual savings.
Common Council president Steve Taylor—as noted earlier— also serves on the City Finance Committee. It strikes me as rather odd that Steve Taylor would boast that a committee he serves on, and has served on for several years, would openly “boast” that the Finance Committee proposed a budget with a tax levy increase of 2.3 percent; taking care to note in the same paragraph that the mayor vetoed the Finance Committee’s proposal, adding “Unlike the ‘shell game’ which the Mayor boasts as a levy decrease the approved budget is extremely transparent with actual savings. Again, Finance Committee: BAD—Mayor Tom Taylor: GOOD.
Common sense would dictate that none of the current members of the Finance Committee should be renominated by Mayor Tom Taylor for appointment to this committee when their term is up, considering the fact that Mayor Taylor vetoed their proposed budget increase.
We also found it interesting that Alderman Taylor found it necessary to printout that the “… approved budget is extremely transparent...,” begging the question: Why wouldn’t it be?
Alderman Taylor continues:
The Mayor proposed a budget in September which lowered the tax levy but placed a separate fee for garbage pickup on your tax bill. The levy decreased by 2.4% which resulted in $101 savings on a home assessed at $235,000. However, a $104 dollar fee, also known as a tax, for garbage pickup would be added to your tax bill and it is also not tax deductible. There may be a time when the City of Franklin has no choice and has to separate the garbage service cost from the tax levy but now is not the time. Shout it from the roof tops with me..."Finance Committee: BAD—Mayor Tom Taylor: GOOD."
Three months or so later, it was time to add a NEW garbage pick-up tax, which Alderman Taylor fails to explain what exactly has changed in the previous few months to make it necessary to create a new tax on Franklin homeowners.
Being a cynic of government and particularly Mayor Tom Taylor's arguably long-time corrupt administration, I ask you to consider this question: Is it possible that the Mayor’s proposed budget which, Alderman Taylor claims, lowered the tax levy by 2.4 percent, amounts to the City’s annual cost for garbage pick-up and in a budget shell game the 2.4 percent "savings" was appropriated somewhere else, necessitating the a separate fee for garbage pickup on your tax bill?
Wednesday, December 26, 2012 at 9:42 AM 
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