It's pretty much an axiom in Virginia Beach politics that if you want to hear a position that's so extreme that it's beyond the pale, wait for Reid Greenmun to speak up. On Wednesday the Virginia Beach Taxpayers Alliance (VBTA) Vice Chairman/Transportation Chairman was commenting on a story online, and called for cutting the City Budget by $530 million. From his comment marked posted at 6:25 P.M., "The City budget has skyrocketed and now that the housing bubble has burst, the City Council needs to direct the City Manager to restore our city to the 2001 budget. We managed just fine in 2001". http://hamptonroads.com/2009/10/virginia-beach-city-council-ponders-taxes-fees
With the fiscal year beginning July 1, the FY 2002 Budget would have been in effect the second half of that year. (In addition, that's as far back as they go on the City's website.) The difference between it and the current Budget is $530 million. Therefore, his position would require cutting more than half a billion dollars from the Budget.
Of course, at a April 20, 2004 Public Hearing, Reid told City Council that he could cut $55 million from the proposed FY 2005 Budget. After being given unprecedented access to City resources, Greenmun never delivered the report that he had promised to Council. (Since the Hearing was in the Council Chambers, VBTV may still have the tape of it.) Given that track record, I'd love to see him now identify $530 million.
With "leadership" like that, no wonder the VBTA is barreling into irrelevancy.
4 comments:
dang is there anything they can do right? i'm telling u, they need to join the "Hampton City Gov", emphasis on " ". not to sound like a broken record, but between Hampton's local government FRONT that provides poor economic planning and development, and VBTA's kool-aid drinking wacky antics, they would make perfect soul mates.
Reid is a perfect example of why the VBTA loses elections and has lost all credibility.
Compare them to the Norfolk Tea Party and it is pretty obvious that this group is a bunch of clowns.
I say leave them alone and let them implode.
So basically he advocates doing away with thousands of employees?
OK, exactly what does this knucklehead think is going to happen to his city if the budget were cut that much????
I'm sure he has a list of areas to cut, just like he did (NOT) present a few years ago!
Anon 2:12,
The VBTA will inevitably go the way of CACI, but they provide great blog fodder in the interim. :)
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