Springfield — To the Editor:
Outrageous ! That is what it is. Yet another tax that is not called for and this time will hit the seniors in retirement homes with fixed meal plans in Fairfax County. My mother is 92 living at The Fairfax retirement home and her meals will go up for no justifiable reason with this meals tax.
The meals tax is promised to provide 70 percent to the school system and 30 percent to other county services. The board of supervisors says they may "consider holding down any further increases in property taxes as a result. This is an outright lie and being said to assuage anyone who may object.
Why are senior citizens now living in retirement homes and across Fairfax County being faced with a tax to go to children two generations removed from anyone of them? This is ludicrous.
A much better way to find funds for the school system is to cut expenditures by cutting the number of board supervisors by 50 percent and all bureaucrats working for the county by 50 percent also.
A supervisor could now handle two districts--say Pat Herrity to cover not only Springfield, but also, now to cover the Lee district. If half of all bureaucrats in the government building were let go, the total savings to the county would be far and away much more to pass on to the school system than any terrible "meals tax" would generate. The cut in bureaucrat manpower would not even be noticed by the average citizen in the county.
Vote ‘No’ on the meals tax on November 8 and cut the county bureaucrat level by half to actually help the funding problem facing the school system.
Bill Petruzel
Springfield