I was both heartened and dismayed with Mayor Emily Larson's announcement of increased street maintenance funded by a proposed increase in the sales tax. Yes, there is no question our streets are in a sad state of disrepair.
What's not fair is to further hamper our local small businesses by decreasing our competitiveness with regional, non-Duluth-based businesses and the internet.
Why not rethink the decisions that diverted street-maintenance funding in the first place? City spending needs to be prioritized with our core infrastructure funded first. I doubt there'd be majority support for a sales tax increase for some of the social programs previously and currently funded.
Strengthen our infrastructure and support our local small business community, and the tax revenue will grow as a result.
The mayor and city councilors should take a hard look at what they already are spending our taxes on before expanding current taxes.
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John Carr
Duluth
