Opinion
Letter to the Editor: Government excess is hurting residents
Dear Editor,
When the people are fed a bill of goods to raise money for a worthy cause, such as the PARC tax, it is a betrayal of a sacred trust for the elected officials to spend that money in ways not as promised.
I would NEVER have voted for such a tax if it were to be used for payroll at Thanksgiving Point ($300,000).
I have heard that there are plans to demolish city buildings for a new City Campus. If this is true, this would be another betrayal of trust to the people of Lehi City.
I understand that the administration has approved a tax increase for next year, as well as $69,000,000 in increased spending. Just because taxes can be raised does not mean they must be raised. This tax creep is relentless in its effect on the citizens of this city and country. Tax Freedom Day used to be mid-April. Now it is mid-June.
The people, especially the young and old on fixed incomes, are being financially destroyed by government excess. This has been a failing of governments since time began. Percy Bysshe Shelley illustrates the end result of governments due to this misbehavior of sacred trust in his poem Ozymandias:
I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . .Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
That hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing besides remains, Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
Please do not continue on the path of misappropriation and power that destroys people and governments.
Ken Greenwood
Former Mayor
Lehi, UT
