Time for a Change of Attitude

In speaking with Aldermen, and listening to them in years past, I've noticed a few disturbing mindsets.

First, it has been mentioned numerous times that Shrewsbury's "chunk" of your tax dollar pie is small compared to the County's and either the Webster Groves or Affton school districts. More often than not, this factoid is used to dismiss criticism that the city's property tax income has been increasing at 300% the rate of inflation, yet the city still wants more. To me, this fact simply speaks to the need for "Hancock Lid" type legislation that limits County and municipality tax income growth to a certain amount, adjustable by mean income of its residents and inflation. This does not, on the other hand, give carte blanche to the city to do whatever it wants without public input and oversight.

Second, the same factoid applied to the Fire Department. In the few times I've dealt with the department, I've found the employees professional, courteous, and an asset to our community. Yet the fact that their services are provided at much less cost to taxpayers than the Affton Fire Protection District (in particular) does not give the city license to change the operation. Why do we feel that because we have a piece of our city that functions at a fair cost to residents, that there must be something wrong, and doubling the amount of fire protection equipment we have is surely in our best interest? Could it possibly mean that Affton FPD simply wastes far more money than we do on giant firehouses and superflous equipment?