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Local politics, the county, and the world, as viewed by Tammy Maygra Tammy’s views are her own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Bill Eagle, his pastor, Tammy’s neighbors, Wayne Mayo, Betsy Johnson, Brian Stout, Former President Trump, Henry Heimuller, Joe Biden, Pat Robertson, Ted Cruz, Joe Biden’s dogs, or Claudia Eagle’s Cats. This Tammy’s Take (with the exception of this disclaimer) is not paid for or written by, or even reviewed by anyone but Tammy and she refuses to be bullied by anyone. See Bill’s Standard Disclaimer
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Pretty much sums up the City of St. Helens
City of St. Helens, Dumb, Dumb, Dumb.
The City of St Helens has now declared they are broke, around March 2024. Which is ahead of the prior date of 2025. The city administrator John Walsh said the reason the date was closer was because Cascade Tissue left and they would not receive the taxes from the company. Walsh wanted to set an emergency meeting as soon as possible but Mayor Rick said Dec would be fine and Walsh disagreed. Stating the sooner they tackled the problem the better. The city is short $1.5 million. The city decided they will add another charge to the water bill to try and make up a portion of the reduction. Another $5-$10 added to the current water bill which already has a $10 charge for the “new police station. How many more charges will the city add to the water bill? My question is how many times can the city add charges to an already high water bill, to bail them out, and when will the taxpayers get their full of the city sneaky ways to collect more taxes without the vote of the people. I believe these additional charges to the water bill are not legal, and I believe there will be a suit against the city sometime in the near future. Charging fees to the water bill is not the answer to keep the city afloat or fund their special projects. How does a police station fall under the water bill criteria? It doesn’t. How does the loss of property taxes fall under the water bill? It doesn’t. The ability of the city to raise money off the water bill was designed in case of a water emergency or sewer emergency to get it fixed without voter approval for a levy ,not a funding source for whatever. Then there is the borrowed $12 million for the police station, the city bought 30 year bonds with part of the money, if they are cashed in the city, the city will be charged a huge penalty for early selling. What kind of transactions are they doing? Certainly not logical ones or smart ones. The next thing we have going on is the scandal Dirt on the Dirty Dirt where the city horse traded commercial property valued at , (we will use the cities own words” “its worth $69,000 or $100,000” we don’t really know the truth yet, but we do know they received 3,600 yards of dirt to be dumped on the property where they want to build the new police station, the value of the dirt is at retail is approximately $48,000( figures of about $13+ per yard from Scappoose Sand and Gravel, or not retailed is $24,000) they needed to raise the land up 4 ft. because its in a flood plain. The cities own planning commission denied the application for the property because of the flood plain but then the mayor and council over ruled their own planning commission’s findings. They forged on doing the horse trade. Yet the trade is not official yet no papers signed, but the contractor has property signs on the property as if he own it. Maybe he does own it and the city has not let the interested parties know. Another interesting fact is that one of the planning commissioners which voted to deny the application to begin with, is now on city council and voted no again! Then we have a city police chief who does not live in the community and worse yet he lives out of state and even worse than that, he only comes into town 1-2 times a week. What the hell, he needs to be at the station every day, involved in the community, available for emergency calls, and even going on patrol if needed. The city also started a project downtown and ran out of money to finish the project, they tore up main street and then just paved over part of it because they didn’t have the funds to finish. My question is, why start a project without the funds to complete the project? Why not save up enough money to make sure the project can be completed. Dumb ,dumb, dumb, planning, and a waste of money as now portions of the street will eventually have to be dug up again and then fixed again. We had a person on the planning commission who threatened to call the cops on a citizen, this man is running for mayor and was incensed when the sitting mayor threatened to call the cops on him and another citizen at a city meeting. Good god has everyone gone completely nuts? From sexual assault by a state representative on one of his staff members, scandals in the republican party for illegal fund raising being investigated by the state liquor Commission, the cities numerous scandals, the Scappoose School Board trying to sneak in a 30 year $2.63 P/T tax for schools. Not reveling the true amount to the voters on the ballot measure, or in their literature. The deceitful, the incompetency never ends in Columbia County. Taxpayers please get involved in in your government , go to meetings, in person or by zoom its really easy. You can’t expect the same people to solve the problems as there are too many for the few people, who keep watch.
Tammy
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