Killing Dogs

Last night when Ginny and I drove to the main library, we noticed a large police presence in the streets around City Hall, which is just across Hemming Park from the library.

Last night the Jacksonville City Council scheduled a vote about increasing property taxes. A large crowd of protestors, observers, and interested citizens surrounded City Hall spilling out into the street and into Hemming Park.

I immediately thought of killing all dogs.

I hope I’m misinformed or just plain wrong, but this is the way I see what’s going on:

Recently, to meet the current budget crisis, city government has juggled property assessments and added various “fees” which they say are not taxes but still cost most citizens more cash out of pocket. At the same time our state government decreased property taxes for some people saving the wealthiest among us and the real estate developers thousands of dollars yearly. Ginny and I benefited; we got a property tax bill for seven dollars ($7) less than last year.

These issues distress people as our city government threatens to curtail library hours, to close homeless shelters, to reduce fire fighting so your home will burn, to stop sending ambulances when you have a heart attack, to collect no more trash, to leave potholes unfilled, to close parks, to stop controlling mosquitoes—and to kill every dog in Jacksonville.

Yes. I exaggerate—a little.

But the dire predictions I hear from City Hall make the Prophet Jeremiah look like a standup comic.

I think I’m seeing a political process my friend newspaper columnist Poke McHenry, God rest his soul, once explained to me.

Poke said, when government wants to do something, say a councilman’s neighbor has a white poodle that digs in his yard, the council first proposes killing every dog in Jacksonville.

Dog lovers rise up in protest. Write letters to the editor. Print tee shirts. Paste bumper stickers on their cars.

What about seeing-eye dogs for the blind?

The council grants an exemption to seeing-eye dogs.

Then they exempt hounds used to search for missing children. And show dogs with pedigrees.

The dog lovers begin to calm down.

But still they hand out flyers and post SAVE OUR PETS notices on phone poles.

Hunting dogs gain an exemption. All black dogs gain exemption under affirmative action clauses in existing laws. Then brown and yellow dog owners demand equal status. Then white pit bulls are exempted; even though dog fights are supposedly banned.

By this time, the fear tactic, smoke screen has worked. The call to kill all dogs diverted people’s attention from what’s really happening. Pet owners feel relieved that city government is listening to them. Our system works. Now that emotions have been damped, folks go about their daily business feeling disaster has been averted.

And that damn lawn-digging white poodle gets the ax—and hardly anybody notices what’s happened.

Looking at the current tactics of our state and local government, I can’t help remembering what Poke said about killing dogs.

Poke said when a volatile emotional issue, no matter what it is, generates a lot of publicity, it’s wise to look around at what else may be going on.

I have no problem paying fair taxes—across the board taxes that apply to everyone without exception—but I think our city’s budget shortfall lies not in how taxes are raised but how they are spent.

Since the Civil War, Jacksonville has earned a reputation as being a sucker town. Carpetbaggers flocked here and took over after the war. That set the tone for Jacksonville’s pouring cash money into foolish projects.

We actually pay businesses to relocate here! That’s supposed to good for our economy. If Jacksonville is really such a good place for their business, why don’t those companies pay us an impact fee?.

We allow highrise offices buildings to sit on land taxed as greenbelt property for dairy cattle. Our city government paid cash money for vacant lots to be developed into the Shipyards condominiums. Money spent. Lots still vacant. No wrong doing found although $34 million is gone with nothing to show for it. And the city subsidizes the football team—for the prestige of having a team. And the city lost money for HarborMaster’s restaurant. And Jacksonville Landing.

And don’t forget, Off Shore Power Systems—a company dedicated to the bright idea of floating nuclear power plants in the ocean in spite of hurricanes—our city sank money into that project before it went belly up.

The city just installed mood lighting on streets around the Gator Bowl (except the carpetbaggers don’t call the stadium that any more). That’s a good use of tax money. It will light the way for football fans—if anybody bothers to buy a ticket to games blacked-out on tv because of lack of ticket sales. But, no fear; the city government also pays for stadium skyboxes for dignitaries.

Then here in Jacksonville, politically appointed city workers get paid thousands more than civil service employees doing the identical job.

Our mayor and others in government found money in our direly distressed city budget to travel to Paris earlier this year to an air show—a hot air show?.

Our city paid contractors to build a Northbank Riverwalk, rushing to complete it before Super Bowl only four years ago, and now that portions of the structure are collapsing into the river, the city pays anew. And the roof in the newly constructed Children’s Commission building leaks, as does the roof of the Willowbranch Library on which the city recently spent $3,000,000. But the original builders are not held accountable for their shoddy workmanship.

And then there’s the $64 million dollar courthouse being built while dozens of derelict downtown buildings sit empty within blocks of City Hall. These could be renovated so that every judge could have his own floor. So although core Jacksonville is a donut of empty buildings, a new courthouse just must be built.

It’s not tax money the city lacks but common sense.

Oh well, this is the way the world works.

I think that when Jesus told a minor government official, “My kingdom is not of this world”, the Lord saw the way things worked in government and was issuing a disclaimer.

So amid the protesters and politicians and smoke and mirrors and corruption and irresponsibility and pettiness and dullness of our government, it amazes me that the system works as well as it does.

I’m confident it will all work out.

Nothing for me to rant about.

Besides, my dog is black.