| ||||||||||
 
Dr. Ronald P. Rogers CHIROPRACTOR Support for your body's natural healing capabilities 270-384-5554 Click here for details 
  
Columbia Gas Dept. GAS LEAK or GAS SMELL Contact Numbers 24 hrs/ 365 days 270-384-2006 or 9-1-1 Call before you dig 
Visit ColumbiaMagazine's Directory of Churches Addresses, times, phone numbers and more for churches in Adair County Find Great Stuff in ColumbiaMagazine's Classified Ads Antiques, Help Wanted, Autos, Real Estate, Legal Notices, More... 
|
Letter: Response to Mr. Flatt Comments re: Letter: Response to comments on Columbia Magazine Note: Amber covers a lot of topics in this response. Be sure to click to the full text. By Amber Hobaugh With all due respect Mr. Flatt, and as the newly appointed Editor of The Adair Progress, I do wish you would come and talk with me or my employers. For your information (and everyone else's), The Adair Progress is open to run editorials from just about anyone. Editorials are reviewed to ensure that they do not go against our community standards and then they are published in our paper. That means that if you so choose, you may run one as well. This is not a courtesy that has just been given to Mr. Bryant. Furthermore, I am the reason Mr. Bryants editorials have not been shared on The Adair Progress Facebook page in the last couple of weeks not because of any negative comments that may have been posted to oppose his opinion. I currently hold the position as Editor for two newspapers and am settling into my new position at The Adair Progress, so I take full responsibility for that being an oversight. The Adair Progress prides itself on being a non-biased paper. Therefore, we do not try to sway our readers towards our personal opinions but try to provide as many facts about a topic as we possibly can to give our readers the freedom to have their own voices and form their own opinions. 20 years from now, the drama that occurs within these meetings and on social media are not going to matter. What is going to matter is the progression that has taken place and whether or not my children and others are having to foot the bill for poorly handled funding (such as the hospital that we are all currently paying for.) As for my opinion on the matter, as a citizen of Adair County for practically my entire life and someone who works here; I do not mind paying a .75% occupational tax. My husband and I both work within the county and we have four children. I have sat through many Fiscal Court meetings for Adair and Russell counties so I feel as though I have a pretty decent knowledge of the process and how it works. I do agree that times are tough for everyone right now and that taxes are not something to be taken lightly. However, I am willing to do my part and pay a little extra out of my paycheck if that ensures that my county as a whole will benefit from it. I am willing to pay this tax to ensure that our county jail is properly staffed and that inmates are cared for so that no more lawsuits against my county occur. I am willing to pay if that means that the Sheriff is able to hire two more deputies and not just one. I have a family member who works law enforcement within this county and I pray daily for his safety. An understaffed Sheriff's department means that if he were to be on a call and need assistance, there may not be adequate coverage and he could be injured. He has three children. Are you willing to bet someone's life based on .25%? I'm not. I am willing to pay this tax if it means that the county can finally move forward with a new transfer station. I am willing to pay this tax if it means that the animal shelter can afford more of what they need due to constantly being at capacity. I am willing to pay this tax if it means the recycling center will be fully operational again. I am willing to pay this tax for many other reasons but the most important of them all (to me) is that I am raising my children here and want better for not only them but for my entire community. In my opinion, Mr. Bryant compromised with other members of the court when he reduced his original proposal from 1% down to .75%. In an editorial that was published in The Adair Progress, he broke down his intentions for that .75% tax and I am all for it. The county received A LOT of American Rescue Plan Act (A.R.P.A) funding that I feel was not exactly spent in a way that would be beneficial to the progression of the county. In my opinion, paying $500,000 for new playground equipment at the Jim Blair Center was irresponsible. I understand that the previous equipment was not all-inclusive but it was a useful park nonetheless with equipment that was not very old. I also understand that certain A.R.P.A funding was earmarked for parks and recreation, but I think before I worried about updating equipment, I would have made sure there was an outside public bathroom for patrons at the park to use. Which would have been a much cheaper investment of that money and has also been a discussion that has been had several times over the last two years with no results as of yet. I have been to the Jim Blair Center since the updated equipment has been installed and I have to admit that it is nice equipment. However, I have two small children and when they needed to use the bathroom, we left. To me, portable bathrooms at any event are unsanitary and are only meant for short-term usage, not for months on end. Thankfully at the last Fiscal Court meeting, the matter was finally discussed again and hopefully steps will be taken to ensure the construction of these bathrooms actually takes place. Furthermore I myself am ashamed of the conduct of the entire Fiscal Court and not just Mr. Bryant as everyone likes to call him out on his behavior but no one else. I know that each of you are passionate in your positions and one of the reasons for this comment is because you felt the need to address and publicly call out my place of employment as well as one of the constituents of the community, Ms. Vicky Pike. Ms. Pike is a very active participant in our community and at many municipal functions. It is a free country and she has the right to express her opinion as she sees fit, as do you. The difference is that when you post something and call a constituent out by name, you are a representative of an entire district and it looks poorly on you. I have tried my best to hold an unbiased opinion throughout all of this mess that you all call local government for the last several months. After all, I am merely but one person and one vote. However, I cannot sit idly by while you and others publicly act the way that you do on the behalf of the citizens of Adair County. I have heard opinions that go either way as far as the occupational tax goes but I also sat through a very informative Economic Development meeting where Mr. Brad Thomas spoke of City and County governments working together for the betterment of our community as a whole. He spoke about ways to draw businesses to our community and I cannot say that under some of the current representation that we have that our county is ready to take those steps. Our City and County governments do not work well together. The constituents are being shamed for publicly voicing their opinions by those who hold a position to vote for an entire portion of our community and our court cannot seem to agree on anything. Have you even tried to keep your personal opinions about Mr. Bryant out of the matter and listened to the community who calls for progression? Did you get to where you are in life with people handing you things or did you have to work for it? I am sure like the majority of us, it was the latter. We all have to work together for a better and brighter future. I am sure you, like myself and others have asked yourself why there is such a rampant drug problem in our area. As my husbands family moved here almost 20 years ago, I have spoken to them and many others who are not natives. The general consensus is that there is nothing to do here to keep people from that path and not enough well paying jobs here to keep people afloat. We need to focus on building a community that people not only want to live in but work in as well and I think .75% occupational tax is a small price to pay for a start at building that future. If my math is correct, and please let me know if its not, an individual who works within the county and grosses $880 bi-weekly would pay $6.60 per paycheck for a .75% occupational tax. That is $13.20 per month. And Im sorry but if $13.20 a month breaks your budget, then you are not going to make it anyway. Additionally, Mr. Bryant also stated that the rate could/would be reviewed in two years for the possibility of a decrease. I realize with taxes, most of the time, that is not the case. However, by then we will be able to compensate, on our own without A.R.P.A funding, for the raises that have already been given to our county employees and the additional insurance that the court has offered to pay as well as the other amenities Mr. Bryant proposed including an emergency fund that the county does not currently have. As a second reading has not occurred yet, I implore you, the other magistrates and my fellow citizens to really consider your stance on this tax. The county is not prospering on how things have been run for many previous years, we are just merely surviving. Amber Hobaugh A native, working, tax-paying, voting citizen. This story was posted on 2023-08-05 08:46:16
Printable: this page is now automatically formatted for printing.
Have comments or corrections for this story? Use our contact form and let us know. More articles from topic Letters and Reader Feedback:
Letter: Economic Development Luncheon Letter: Yellow flower Letter: Response to comments on Columbia Magazine Letter: Response to Frustrated with Fiscal Court Letter: Adair County Courthouse Wings Letter: Frustrated with Fiscal Court! Letter: Time to move forward and work together Letter: EDA what it means to Adair County Letter: Jonathan Gold at Naval Academy Letter: Courthouse renovation View even more articles in topic Letters and Reader Feedback |
 
115 Jamestown St. Columbia, KY. 270-384-2496 
  
   
 Provided by the Adair Co Fiscal Court and the Adair Co. Emergency Mgt. Agency 
|
||||||||
|
| ||||||||||
|
Quick Links to Popular Features
Looking for a story or picture? Try our Photo Archive or our Stories Archive for all the information that's appeared on ColumbiaMagazine.com. | ||||||||||
|
Contact us: Columbia Magazine and columbiamagazine.com are published by Linda Waggener and Pen Waggener, PO Box 906, Columbia, KY 42728. Please use our contact page, or send questions about technical issues with this site to webmaster@columbiamagazine.com. All logos and trademarks used on this site are property of their respective owners. All comments remain the property and responsibility of their posters, all articles and photos remain the property of their creators, and all the rest is copyright 1995-Present by Columbia Magazine. Privacy policy: use of this site requires no sharing of information. Voluntarily shared information may be published and made available to the public on this site and/or stored electronically. Anonymous submissions will be subject to additional verification. Cookies are not required to use our site. However, if you have cookies enabled in your web browser, some of our advertisers may use cookies for interest-based advertising across multiple domains. For more information about third-party advertising, visit the NAI web privacy site.
| ||||||||||
