It Doesn’t Add Up
Since Hurricane Katrina, the City of New Orleans has less residents and less households so that it would seem that it would have less services to render and less revenue necessary to render those services. Augment that dwindling population base with the millions of dollars that have come into the city post-Katrina relative to federal assistance, etc. and one would think that we are facing a rosy picture here. Unfortunately, what we in fact have is higher property taxes, pushes for increased mileages and the perennial threat of diminished services.
As I look at my Christmas gift from the City of New Orleans, my property tax bill received the day after Christmas, I was totally befuddled at why I should pay thousands of dollars to this city. I don’t have children so I don’t use the public schools. I even pay my own recycling fees to recycle my garbage. The streets in my neighborhood are as bad as the streets in every other neighborhood and even in Downtown New Orleans. The street lights on my main avenue have yet to be turned back on after Katrina.
In sum, something is wrong with this picture. As I drive through pot holes the size of small cars and pass still-vacant businesses, strip malls and houses that are about to cave in, the only thing I can say is, “It Does Not Add Up.”
Tags: latino, latinola, new orleans, new orleans government, new orleans taxes, nola cubano, puentes