Suddenly in Springfield

There's talk of spending millions of dollars on infrastructure replacement in Springfield, Illinois. The trend has been to use the claim of infrastructure maintenance necessity to justify sudden massive increases in utility rates in the city.

I contend that such maintenance requirements are common knowledge and should have been included in already existing taxes and fees. Therefore, I conclude that corruption is rampant on a scale that requires federal intervention.

The city of Springfield has an old generation that spent huge amounts of money to build Springfield right after World War II, and when they were done, they sat back and retired, and complained bitterly about taxes.

They didn't want to pay taxes and their politicians promised not to raise taxes, and now that they are all dying off, they can go peacefully without a worry for themselves, or so they thought.

Suddenly, money is needed to fix things. Now water, sewer and other city service charges are doubled, tripled, or quadrupled. Why? Those idiots didn't want their taxes increased to create a surplus for such needed maintenance. If they allowed for a gradual increase in taxes to maintain a budget surplus in anticipation of repair or infrastructure growth, there would be no issue here. The money would be available.

If the budget was planned properly and there was still a need for sudden increases in fees by the city, than a federal investigation needs to be initiated, and people jailed for stealing the money.

So what is the solution? Leave Springfield, Illinois. Move out. Those who leave now will join others who left when schools were desegregated.

The commutes to work will be longer and harder. Sales taxes locally will be the only way to shore up the city coffers.

The flipside is the gentrification of Springfield. The only people who will stay will be those that can afford it. But I have bad news. More than two-thirds of the population of Springfield earns less than ten dollars per hour.

Allegedly local business owners have influence with local politicians. Did they influence local politicians into keeping past utility rates too low? Do the majority of these local business owners actually live within the Springfield city limits?

If the majority of the local business owners reside elsewhere, they might be inclined to think they will suffer no long-term consequences for dangerously low utility rates and city taxes. They can pull up stakes and move elsewhere, that's why most of them only lease the property upon which they do business.

Except for farming, SPFLD's well of commerce is drying up, my friends.