Thursday, February 25, 2010

IN RAISING THE LICENSE PLATE FEE BY $10 IN 2007, STARK COUNTY HAS BEEN ABLE TO LEVERAGE $2.4 MILLION INTO $10 MILLION. AREN'T YOU IMPRESSED?

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One of recently deceased Stark County engineer Mike Refus's contributions to the quality of Stark's roads and bridges was to get the commissioners to impose a $10 county allowed surcharge on Ohio license plates fees.

Commissioner Todd Bosley joined with fellow Commissioner Jane Vignos (now retired) in 2007 to impose the increased fee.  The third commissioner, Gayle Jackson, now a Strickland appointee to the Ohio Lottery Commission, voted no. 

In the accompanying video at yesterday's meeting, Mike Hanke (county administrator) is seen reading a report from the engineer's office detailing the condition of Stark's roads and bridges.
Newly appointed Commission Steve Meeks is seen making the point that the $2.4 raised so far by the increased fee has provided local match money that has enabled Stark County to grow the money to about $10 million in matching state and federal grants.

Apparently, not all imposed taxes are bad?

Here is the video.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I'm not sure the 1/3 of the citizenry living on poor/critical roads would subscribe to the theory the imposed tax is good.

It certainly is nice to have some state and federal money flow in to help, but I'm guessing Bosley & Co. didn't know that would happen or he would have been crowing about it then (2007), and certainly would have grabbed the camera to crow about it now. At least in this instance the revenues that came in went to projects they were intended for.