OMG! Waukegan ate my baby!

A blog by some random guy who just happens be from and live in Waukegan, Illinois U.S.A. Nothing more complicated than that.

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Waukegan short of revenue B.S.

Saw in the local paper that this city is crying because a grant for the police department has expired, and now they're short of revenue...

To which I say, THAT'S A BUNCH OF B.S.!

Why? The city is completely slacking off on all the things they could be doing to collect this revenue.

Heres a short list:
  1. Traffic enforcement: Every morning and afternoon, I see vehicular traffic going twice the posted speed limit on the major roadways in this city. If there was any kind of regular and active traffic enforcement you probably wouldn't see this. Doesn't anyone else think that cars doing over 60MPH on a roadway with a posted 35 is a bit much?
  2. Get rid of the retarded-ass parking meters downtown! Those things cost the city more in lost sales taxes than they make for a bit of chump change. Yes, I know they're there to keep the county courthouse from taking up all the parking. However there is a way to limit that too. Ditch the meters and have a regularly enforced 2-hour parking limit. This will attract more business, particularly from the curious who aren't stopping otherwise. And with a two hour limit, you can keep some of the meter attendants busy chalking tires and enforcing that ordinance instead.
  3. Code enforcement: There's more to the city than downtown. A lot of houses are overcrowded. When the code inspectors see more than 5 cars out front, that should be a big clue. Some residences intended for 6 people have cots and subdivided rooms housing 20 people. Not only is it not safe if there's ever a fire, but they're actively cheating the city out of a lot of taxes. Other than that, properties that aren't maintained should have the current owner fined. That should even be the case for banks or holding companies with the current title for forclosed properties.
  4. Raise taxes on multiple-unit dwellings: A good portion of the city population lives in apartments, and they're not chipping in anywhere near as much as the homeowners to the city tax base. But they still create costs on infrastructure and services in the city.
That's why their "short on revenue" complaint is B.S. If the city made an honest effort on any of these things instead of slacking-off, they'd have the money to make up for that and then some.