Chris Petsas

Valley Views

The controversial decision to shut down our bus service is not based on our city finances — though it has been painted that way to spread a smoke screen across our city in an attempt to cover up the real reason. This is nothing more than a coordinated power grab between the county and city administration — just like the sales tax grab that has cost this city millions of dollars over the last few years. If this decision to shut down our buses were truly based on finances — then we should all be ashamed of the lack of homework conducted by the administration and Council members Matthew McNamara, Lee David Klein and Mike Young because they fail to tell the taxpayers the real truth.

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The real truth is that the city will receive nothing — zilch, zero, zip for the millions in assets we own when the county “takes over” on July 1st. That’s right, under the new deal supported by the mayor and three southside councilmen, the county will pay nothing for our fleet of buses and nothing for our equipment used to maintain our buses. These assets, over the years, cost city taxpayers over $3.5 million and will now be wiped off our asset books and simply handed over to the county. What kind of a “good deal” is this for a financially struggling city? Millions in assets given away for free? Additionally, the city will be responsible for nearly $700,000 that will need to be paid back to the state and federal government for shutting down its bus service and reneging on financial promises. Add both together and the city will lose millions under this tilted deal. How good does this deal now sound to the taxpayers of this city?

If we are truly ever to solve our city’s financial issues, then we must not take the easy way out by simply giving away the farm. And if we are truly serious about being leaders of good moral compass and of compassion, we don’t start with making cuts that will negatively affect our most vulnerable population base — that of our elderly, disabled, students, minorities and those who simply can’t afford to own a car. It is these residents that rely so heavily on our better transportation system and it is these residents that we should, as elected officials, always serve to protect and defend, even in the face of deep financial struggles. But on Friday, April 21st, the mayor through his veto of extending funding for the buses, failed in his oath to serve and protect our most vulnerable residents. More stunning was that on Monday, May 1st a Democratic majority council failed in its oath by failing to override the mayor's veto.

It is ironic that while the mayor condemns our "failing" city bus system for adding to our growing deficit and asserts that this is one of the reasons we need to eliminate our bus service, he somehow fails to condemn the biggest and most financially disastrous decision that was made in recent history, the renegotiated sales tax formula. This was another supposed “good deal” for the city and its residents, and a deal that our mayor helped spearhead. This decision proved to severely and unnecessarily harm our city by stripping us of millions of dollars in revenue and has single-handedly knocked us off our feet. During this time, the county coffers grew to over $60 million while the city has sunk deeper and deeper into debt. Another supposed “good deal” like the bus deal now being touted by the county executive and mayor.

Rest assure once the county has control of our public transportation system, it will look for more public assets to take over like our city/town water plant — in fact the county has already served the city with a letter expressing their interest in buying out our city share and thus controlling it and any future revenues. Another good deal on its way.

Christopher D. Petsas represents the 1st Ward on the City of Poughkeepsie Common Council