A few years ago we voted to raise our local property taxes. Now keep in mind we voted 57% for McCain (and I live in IL). I recall a handful of folks screaming at the town hall meetings about what the city would do with the money.
At the top of the debate and anger our city manager, who is hired and not elected said:
People like nice things. Nice things cost money. We are trying to give you nice things .... deal with it!
As the "hippie liberal" I didn't have to say much in those meetings. Soccer moms and many Republicans took up the "cause" for me. We wanted to, and we did, raise our taxes to do a few things:
1. Improve our parks.
2. Tear down a few buildings on Main Street and build more parks. The term "green spaces" was actually used.
3. Build a food pantry (won every award the state of IL can give out)
4. Pay local artists to well, create art for said parks.
Now I don't live in a "rich" town or the "burbs." I live in a small rural town of 7,800 folks. Kind of in the middle of nowhere. We decided as a group, a community that raising our taxes and improving our city was a good idea.
Much more below the fold.
The next election we voted again to raise our taxes, so we could build a new $60M high school. Heck in the last election, for a third time we voted to raise our taxes to build a new primary school. Three times in a decade. Even doing all this our property taxes are still the lowest in the county.
If you came to stay with me, get up in the morning and went for a walk you'd be stunned. You can't walk three blocks or so in any direction and not find a park. Or maybe better to just say a "green" space.
Even though this is the view outside my front door:
I can walk two blocks and find mass transit. My congresscritter fights for me. Gets us a ton of aid and we spend it. Heck four miles from my house I got a high speed rail line. I think I am the only person that uses it, but alas I at least have that option. Heck my county lets any Senior Citizen ride for almost free. The State of Illinois told us a few years ago that wasn't acceptable anymore. We told them to fuck off. We won!
Last year we got a grant from the Federal government and laid fiber to every public building in our town (schools, Post Office, City Hall, you name it). We're pondering giving free wireless access to everybody.
In 2010 my town had 7,800 folks. In 2000 5,500.
We can't build houses fast enough. It would seem good schools, and we have some of the best in the state if not the nation, parks, and other perks we offer matter to folks.
I said in the title here "We CAN Do It" and I mean that. We are doing things in my town most folks only talk about. Funny thing they seem to work. We can build infrastucture. We can build parks. We can do all kinds of things. It isn't that hard.