February 2011

If you have attended a meeting in the month of February 2011, please comment under this blog and I will add it upon approval. This will help keep the community informed. 

These are the collected highlights for town council meetings in Fort Mill, SC:

Larry B -  February 1, 2011
    York County
    1. Good evaluation for the School District Leadership. This is good.
    2. Education of students-Seems to be excellent
    3. Property tax monies are coming in.
    4. Budgets are in good shape.
    5. No layoffs are expected for teachers in District Four.
    6. The Boy Scouts were evaluating this meeting in order to complete merit badge requirements.

Monday, February 21, 2011:

York County Council Meeting

Mick Mulvaney appeared to give a short briefing and field questions. He stated that he is scared to death because of everything he has seen regarding our country’s fiscal situation. “No one has told us the truth for the last 20-30 years,” he stated. He presented a paper showing figures where he had asked his staff to show what will happen if we keep borrowing so much money. The question was: at what point will we use all of our revenues as a country just to pay the interest on our debt? The answer was 2055, at the latest, and likely much sooner because the assumptions that the Congressional Budget Office uses are too low. He stated that we are already at the point where Greece, Iceland and other European countries are. He pledged to continue fighting to bring the spending into line. All states will be impacted by what decisions are made, because there simply is not enough money to send down to the states. 

He highlighted some good news that some countries are coming back from the brink of collapse. Canada was one example, from the mid-1990s, that made major cuts and is now doing well. The question for us is whether we have the political will to make the tough choices. He went on to say that a lot of people from SC have come through his office asking for money, and he tells them that it simply is not there. This is hard for a politician who wants to get reelected, but it has to be done. There are many in Congress who have been there for 20-30 years and have never said no to people seeking favors. 

He offered to present any measures that will help our county but will cost Washington nothing. Now is the time to bring such measures to the forefront. Now is the time to get rid of unfunded requirements and the regulatory measures that are imposed on us. Anything Congress can do to make our life easier in the county, now is the time to ask. The Chairman stated that as a small businessman the Obama administration is killing small businesses, and as a doctor, Obamacare is making practice impossible. Councilman Chappell got applause when he insisted that we cannot keep on spending money we don’t have. Mulvaney said that there is a large group of newly-elected folk who will “lie down in front of the tanks if Obama decides to bail out California.” That also drew a lot of applause. The Federal Reserve owns most of our debt, the Chinese are next, followed by the Japanese and then OPEC states.

One Councilman told Mick that if he sticks to the conservative values of his district, that he will work to keep him in Congress, because past representatives have not done that. Mick cautioned the county to take a look at what federal monies impact the county and make contingency plans in case of a government shutdown of secondary services. The only way to solve the fiscal problem is to give more power and authority to the states. As he finished and was leaving, he collected the papers he had handed out and was commended for “already starting the savings.”

The Culture & Heritage Commission proceedings continues to dominate a lot of the Council’s time. One man appeared before Council to state that he was not in favor of his tax dollars supporting the Culture & Heritage Commission. The CHC needs to be run privately and supported privately, in his opinion, and requested that Council look at the cost versus the benefits when considering the outcome of the Culture & Heritage Commission. The composition, powers and restructuring of the CHC continues to be on the agenda and passed its first reading.

The primary beekeeper involved in trying to get the county to re-zone residential areas for bees did not show for this meeting.

 

These are the collected highlights for town council meetings in Mecklenburg County, NC:

Please put your:

1. first name and last initial
   
2. date of the meeting
3. county
4. highlights
5. meeting attended(city council, school board...)

We are just looking for highlights and NOT the whole minutes, what you think would be important for the community to know. Thank you very much!