To the Editor:
Does anyone remember all the reporting requirements and ethics statements required to run for office these days? Your entire life must be laid out for all to see. Add to that the social media critics and anyone who runs for office today is subjected to every criticism one can imagine.
Yet, some people believe that the funding stream for politics can be controlled by limiting who can give and to which cause. Well, I can tell you from personal experience unless you stop allowing unions to mandate union dues to keep a job, you will have forced political contributions. Also, unless you restrict who a politician works for while serving in office, you get the same thing. For the last time, limiting impact fees through state legislation is absurd.
Impact fees by definition are designed to pay for the necessary improvements generated by new construction. So, I guess all of those costs should fall on the taxpayer not the developer. To top it off an arbitrary three percent limit! And the state government gets to limit impact fees which are driven by need not artificial limits but actual costs – look out! All of those state politicians who work for developers will be raising your taxes and smiling at the same time. Wow, I thought I saw it all but you never know where the next hand grenade will come from. What an idea, the state sets impact fees for local government to reduce the impact on those making all the money and transfer it to taxpayers, probably by bond issues instead of impact fees. Oh wait, didn’t that already happen in Sumter County? My two cents.
Robert Nyce
Village of El Cortez