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Bond is bad news
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According to a newspaper article, our (un)esteemed Anderson County Council has shown its total disregard of present economics and taxpayers’ limited income by passing a $10 million bond program. This is on top of an $24 million, 19 percent tax revenue budget spending increase. A property value reassessment is in progress and a one-cent sales tax increase referendum is yet to come. What is next?
Do they not realize that the country, states and localities are facing hard times? Recession, job losses, lower living standards and inflation are on the way. Who really believes that big business and manufacturers will come to Anderson and save the day? It’s the resident taxpayers who will do the paying more and more.
As to the $10 million bond, this is nothing more than a government pseudonym for borrowing more money to get what you want today and committing the taxpayers to pay for it with interest for years to come. It is just like a credit card and just as easy to be abused.
My advice to council and administration is to kill the bond, control the credit cards and reduce spending now.
Bob Kiser, Anderson
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All these county council members (that you are so quick to criticize) pay taxes, as do their relatives and friends. They are not picking on you.
Anderson's taxes are very much lower than other towns and... overall South Carolina's tax structure is lower than most other states.
Why can't you be proud of where you live and quit worrying about every dollar that is spent by our very reputable local government?
You will never understand how an entity with several hundred people doing various jobs is coordinated and accounted for on expenses. If you could sit and read all credit card statements, you would not grasp why the expenses occurred. You will never understand that grant money is usually for a particular project and must be spent only on that project. Also if grant money is not spent, then you don't get the grant next year. County Council has always had (and still does) have access to all financial records. If you believe otherwise, you are following the few that want you to believe things are bad..
Anderson County actually runs extremely well, winning award after award......most of it in financial ways.
Take a vacation....relax.....I don't think you will see a giant leap in your taxes....but you may see better schools, roads, more cultural activites, and an overall more attractive Anderson.
Now.....what can we do about that negative guy on the radio???
They may pay taxes, but with all the self enrichment they are handing themselves and their friends why would they care. It is the people who are struggling in this tough economy that are suffering. A simple case of the wealthy not caring because with their wealth the state of the economy is no more than a nuisance. How many people on County Council and who work for county and city administration are at risk of losing their homes. They get that guaranteed paycheck, that guaranteed raise, all the best benefits. Of course they are going to defend every move of Slick Joey. They are going to get theirs regardless of what happens to everyone else.
Sophievoter's obsessive defense of every single thing Preston does makes me wonder how sophievoter is being rewarded and enriched by Preston. I can understand people being obsessive about defending their rights or their tax dollars. That is only a normal act of self preservation and our patriotic duty. For someone to lie, in just about every statement they post, claiming everything people are complaining about is just a figment of their imagination and that everything is just hunky dory...takes someone making money hand over fist with Joey Preston's administration. Either sophievoter is the most briliant person who ever lived and the rest of us are just ignoramouses, or sophievoter is at the trough with Slick Joey and lies with every breath to protect their position.
Sophievoter you have officially won the PROPAGANDA PUPPET AWARD of 2008. We will all advise Slick Joey of your loyalty and ask him to send cash as checks can be traced.
How despicable can your leadership (as a lame duck council) be, to do things the voters have clearly sent a message indicating they do not want. I have no doubt having all this happen while Waldrep is out of town is no coincidence either.
Preston moves forward, regardless of what the citizenry clearly indicated they don't want, because he had promised out the largesse to city leaders, contractors, developers and all the other monied people he is manipulating. By drawing them into his web he makes them as guilty as he is and now they won't do what is best for the constituents but what will protect their mutual acts of self enrichment. How many times do things have to happen in this county where the standard answer to questions is, "it is a secret" or "file an FOI" if you want to know. Never mind AIM has filed for all the FOI ever requested and if Slick Joey doesn't want to answer an FOI all he has to do is say, "we handled them in order and you are 2,340th on the list." He has already had the Supreme Court rule he can answer FOI requests at his leisure. The deck continues to be stacked higher and higher. Slick Joey has made himself into the "teflon Don" of Anderson County.
How Slick Joey Preston has sewed this all up so neatly for himself is the reason we should fear him one and all.
in response to sophievoter
"cultural activities"..LOL HAHAHA. is that what the balloon fest was.no, a flop is what it was.tax payer was money allocated for that event.did the event make a profit.by the few people I saw in attendance,I don't think so.we had more media coverage regarding that event when a pilot was injured than any other time.
in response to CindyRoper
FYI to CindyRoper.....I am embarrassed by people that think they understand how Government entities work, try to discuss and argue facts, and then attempt to make others believe what they are saying. I am also embarrassed that a council member would take the administrator to court, then lose, then have people say the supreme court was on Joey's payroll. How ridiculous!!!
By the way....where can I pick up my PROPAGANDA PUPPET AWARD of 2008 that you said I won??????
in response to sophievoter
FYI to sophievoter…embarrassment is a self imposed dilemma. Other people don’t embarrass you, you permit yourself to be embarrassed. The presumption that Slick Joey and yourself are the only people who know how government works SHOULD embarrass you. Point out one discussion you have put forward and one fact that has been ignored. The facts are Slick Joey is running a county administration, with the assistance or support of people like you, that thumbs it’s nose at the public, continues to increase our tax obligations, plays with our money at his own whim and discretion in the form of a slush fund, lives the high life on our credit cards, writes himself a contract that is going to send us to the poor house to get rid of him, makes us chase every dispute with him through the legal system, has all the angles covered with secrecy and lawyers (at our expense), has fought tooth and nail to have anyone question anything he does, has lied or exaggerated to the public the costs of FOI requests, making copies, posting information to the internet, the cost of a forensic audit, makes an end run around anything he decides he doesn’t like and is as arrogant a person I have ever seen or been around in my life.
All awards come from Slick Joey. He is the money guy. I am sure he will reward you for your mindless support of his administration.
in response to sophievoter
If indeed someone said the Supreme Court was on Joey’s payroll (which coming from you is probably more propaganda) doesn’t mean the rest of it is not true. You are the one who continues to tell us about these awards we paid a membership in some organization to get. You never mention the fact we have to pay money to these people to get these awards. You make much issue of the accounting audits and how we have gotten more of those paid for awards because our reporting and presentation is so great, but you never mention those awards have nothing to do with a true audit. You should be embarrassed by your lack of knowledge of accounting if you don’t know the difference between what these paper awards are given for and what a real forensic audit involves. No, you want to distract people away from shady and questionable credit card use by telling people it, “only involves a few dollars” and attempt to cause people to lose sight of the dishonesty behind the practices. Did your parents not teach you that if people are dishonest in how they handle small matters, they will also be dishonest in how they handle big matters. No one and I mean no one has stepped forward, other than the head of the EcoDev (who denied the practice was her doing), to explain the smoking gun of why credit card charges of large expenditures at hotels and resorts are broken down into multiple similar sized charges for the same day. Accountants find no plausible reason that would occur except to attempt to fly under the audit radar. Our own “external” and “internal” auditors have said they have a threshold dollar amount they use to filter what they look at when they look over the books. Breaking down those credit card charges below amount means they would never have been seen or noticed until Cindy Wilson got ahold of those credit card bills and posted them on the internet for all to see. You are right in one thing, most people looking over a bunch of credit card bills wouldn’t have much of a chance of understanding or following what was going on with all the names and account numbers and any information that would show a trail or pattern of deception, being blacked out. People don’t hide the size of credit card charges by requesting vendors to break down large hotel bills into smaller identical amounts because of any other reason than to mask the true size of the bill. Before her comments were removed, the head of EcoDev said this was the “way it was done” when she got there and was the common practice. After getting chewed out by Slick Joey (or his lawyers) she tried to come back and recant her statements and claim the charges were broken down for internal accounting purposes (which may happen on occasion…no one says that is not possible if several departments are at an annual seminar or something). But to have it happen repeatedly with single persons at the heart of it and most of it lavish travel and resort hotel food and alcohol tabs it smells of credit card abuse.
in response to CindyRoper
Good morning CindyRoper....You are always talking about rewards and awards, Again, I ask you.....Where is my PROPAGANDA PUPPET AWARD of 2008 that you said I won???
Or were you justy teasing??
One other thing??? If you think the county overspends...Just how much money do you think the county should opperate on? How much should be alloted to each department? How much should be alloted for expenses for travel? What travel would you approve? How much would you suggest be spent on roads?? How much for schooling? How much for office supplies, electricity, water, postage, gasoline for county trucks and vehicles. And last, but not least, what should the salary structure be?? How much should Joey Preston make?? How much should the auditor make?? How much should the county magistrates make? How much should the secretaries make? You don't have answers......just gripes....
in response to sophievoter
Slick Joey wrote into his contract that he can spend anything he wants, whenever he wants and we have to pay for it and although his contract looks pretty air tight, there are some prevailing laws regarding fundamental fairness and the fact that you cannot write or enforce an illegal contract. What makes a contract illegal? There are a whole list of things that can make a contract illegal. You cannot legally operate a slush fund. A close examination of how Slick Joey operates will show his practices have particular elements of illegality, illegitimacy, or secrecy in regard to the use of our money and the means by which these funds are acquired. It will also show how his operating of his slush fund is for quid pro quo (buying political favors) from County Council members and leaders of various city governments he funnels money to pay for community centers and city goverment buildings and commercial enterprises we have no business being involved in, to keep them in his pocket. Why do you think we are giving all this money to city governments and councilperson's pet pork projects in their districts at a time we are gasping for financial breath? Why do you think every time a question of money comes up the funds are from grants or secret private sources or some other excuse that denies accountability? It is because he promised it to them long before the current economic slump. I find it interesting how we approve a budget, of Slick Joey's making, with the assumption it would be paid for out of all the revenue from taxes, fees, and monies we already have coming in. How many people realized we would have to begin passing bond obligations and rely on the penny tax to pay for it all? I don’t care how many contracts you write to the contrary, you cannot write a contract that allows you to break the law. Slick Joey doesn't want a forensic audit because it will prove he is breaking the law in how he has operated this county administration and would thereby nullify his contract. I guess if I were him I would fight it to the Supreme Court as well (expecially since his contract says we have to pay for it).
We have to live withon our means in these tough economic times and that means from our leadership down. All this "growth"/window dressing we are doing to supposedly attract business by "building playgrounds and community centers for our children" can wait a year or two until the economy strengthens or at least until after the elections to see what direction our country is going to take.
Now I wonder how long all of that is going to stay on the main page of this site? I bet it is buried before Monday 9am.
in response to CindyRoper
Again,,,,I ask you...Tell me an amount appropriate to spend on any item I mentioned earlier. What is too much?? What do you consider "high dollar"???
How much should be spent on a hotel room by a county employee?? What should the salaries be?
What should the budgeted amount be for the various departments?.....Come on......You say you have been informed and you seem very quick to say that too much is spent on County credit cards. How much is too much?? How much budget cutting would make you happy?
FYI....Most of the awards that the county has received have come from sources that hundreds of agencies belong to. They do not all win awards, so I don't think you can say the award is purchased by Joey Preston since all the agencies pay the same (if any) amount. The county is not just audited by a local firm, they are also audited by the Federal Government twice a year.
It is foolish to believe that Joey Preston has paid off all the people that he is accused of paying. According to a particular group of folks that complain, he owns the council, the local judges, the state and federal goverment, and even the supreme court. There are a couple of complainers that actually helped write Joey Preston's contract and approved his perks and raises.
CindyRoper, I am not trying to pick on you, but you seem to have lots of concerns about the finances. I would love to hear your solutions.
I wonder how many of the 'think we spend to much on taxes' people have ever lived or traveled outside of Anderson? I have been around a bit and owned homes in other states, and followed local politics while living there. If you have one type of Apple say a Red Delicious how can you say that it is better than all other types of Apples? If the same person has been doing your hair for the past 20 years how can you say they are the best Stylist in town? Well if you have never traveled or lived anywhere else how can you say Anderson taxes are to high? I wish people would stop making definitive statements on things they have no knowledge of, it just perpetuates the stereotype of stupid redneck here in the South.
in response to sophievoter
What does one thing you listed in your post have to do with this discussion?
Let's see now, maybe I should ask you a few questions. How high will the water rise against the curb with two inches of rain? How tall will the steeple of a new church be if you have $2000 to spend. How many people should be allowed on a bus at one time if the road is bumpy? Can you answer any of your own questions? Again you are just trying to distract from the practices and ways of Slick Joey and the way he runs this county. All of your questions could easily be answered by any county administrator, not just Slick Joey. He didn't invent the position, just his slick ways of handling it.
You are clearly a proponent of the thinking that "the end justifies the means". If you don't understand what that means. It means that as long as you get the results you want, you don't care about how it is accomplished. Or paraphrased, "my aim for greater good makes all the evils I have done right."
As far as the county spending too much, all the questions you posed have nothing to do with that. It has to do with what we are spending it on and the reasons why. Pulling out a few things from the budget and talking about how they are "for the kids" and our future but has nothing to do with the county money we are spending on city projects or the penny tax to fund an east-west connector that will benefit a lmited few in this county. Oh, except for the people operating on inside knowledge who bought up land or projected sewer and water infrastructure buildout to benefit developments they are involved in. Or the commercial activities we not only contribute to but try to run and profit from. For example this whole issue of this charity the County got involved with and paid for the motorcycle to get here and sending the winner to somewhere and all that nonsense. The problem lies not in whether charity is a good thing or not, it lies in the fact that unless the County does that for every single charity in this County then the purpose is to give out favors to certain people running certain charities. That is wrong. It all occurred with the personal okay of Slick Joey. Who was he trying to impress or gain favor with. Was it to make him look good personally to support a charity with County money? Why was that charity shown favoritism over all the others in the County?
Slick Joey spends our money to make himself look good, to gain favor from decision makers in our leadership,to lock in support from people for things he wants to do, gives out contracts and grants and contributions to entities that buy him power. Whether he accomplishes good things in the mean time is irrelevant. It is the HOW, not the WHAT, that matters. If someone robs a bank and gives it all to charity, does that make it okay? I think not.
in response to robert
"I wonder how many of the 'think we spend to much on taxes' people have ever lived or traveled outside of Anderson?"
Your generalization of everyone opposed to Preston is mischaracterized. I doubt seriously if any taxpayer, that thought money was wasted on a million dollar legal defense of Preston's ego, would object to spending for legitimate needs of the county. The problem is that he has embroiled himself in such a web of secrecy and self-empowering practices that no one trusts him anymore. The only people who support him are people on payroll or entities getting the benefits from his slush fund of county money.
Robert: "I wonder how many of the 'think we spend to much on taxes' people have ever lived or traveled outside of Anderson?"
I've lived outside of Anderson. The taxes in this county far outweigh the benefits. This area does not need to become "Greenville II".
I'm only one person but I should bet I'm in the majority when I say roll-back the taxes and keep the small town aura we had before the BIG BANG (big increase).
Speaking of "taxes in this county far outweigh the benefits."
The irony of it all is our money (or bond money we are obligated to repay) is used to build county facilities, pay salaries of people to run the county facilities and pay for whatever it takes to keep those county facilities operating; but, when we go to use those facilities or services, we are charged a fee for using it. Fees that do not represent true cost of the usage, but are padded to generate revenue. We buy it, we pay to keep it running and when we use it the county profits from it. If those profits weren't being used for $1600 a night hotels and million dollar legal fees to defend a county administrator, it might be different. Examples: Buildings and Codes has every facet of it paid for by taxpayers. They charge a fee to come and inspect your business or property. The courts and court system is paid for by the taxpayers. They charge a fee for everything you do regarding involvement with the court system, including a 100% premium over any fines imposed upon conviction. Community centers and recreation facilities, you have to pay to participate. Fees are the hidden tax that is not even considered in most people's calculations of their tax burden. I would love to see a complete list of all fees charged by the city and county, in every department, accompanied by their costs justification. Which account does all this fee revenue actually go to? The general fund?
it still blows my mind that our county council would give $22,000 to the balloonfest and only $150.00 to the charity golden harvest when they were begging for help.
in response to xenacat2
Why would that surprise you? Haven't they shown where their priorities are. Elections are coming up and the Balloonfest is a high visibility issue. Hungry people aren't on television.
"Preston's spending "millions" to defend his ego??" Who brought that lawsuit? Cindy.
Who LOST that lawsuit (and all the others)? CINDY. Maybe we should get CINDY to repay us for her frivolous lawsuits!!! Cindy and her gang are an embarrassment to us all.
It seems to me that Mr. Preston will win any attempt to oust him based on the rantings of Cindy's crew. His contract was approved by the council. Legally, he didn't write it...THEY did. And, several of the posts concerning "illegal activities" implied against Mr. Preston could really be seen as libel/slander. Are we now going to have to pay more money to defend Cindy and her ilk?
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