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Budgets
The School Board, Town of Washington and county have all successfully Negotiated the budget process once again.
The tax increase needed to fund increases in the county and ■ school budgets will be painful for many people, but the governments in Washington and Richmond could benefit from adopting the mostly conciliatory attitude the county’s representatives bring to their budget deliberations.
No one implies that those he or she disagrees with is unpatriotic, opposed to the free enterprise system or out to destroy the county. After disagreements are reconciled votes are usually unanimous.
There are no budget deficits. In fact both the county and town are running healthy surpluses. Local tax increases, as a matter of fact, are almost entirely the result of federal and state mandates coupled with decreasing financial support from those governments.
Rappahannock County benefits enormously from the fact that local elections are non partisan. Partisanship is making a mockery of the state and federal governments, and indeed it is infecting counties around us.
The county needs to hold a steady course — resist the impulse to buy into the discredited notion that giving in to development pressures will help reduce taxes by increasing the tax base. At the same time the county needs to send a message to both Washington and Richmond that tax cuts and even holding the line on taxes benefits almost no one .when it simpjy translates into higher taxes on real estate.
Taxes on income are fairer tjhan_Jgx.es on real £State. ^mments with the power to tax income should not push their obligations onto localities which cannot.
The Inn and the Signs
It is hard for most county citizens and even some in the Town of Washington to understand why every dispute in town becomes a debate on The Inn at Little Washington.
The facts are simple — the town benefits from the presence of The Inn, and The Inn benefits from being in the town.
The Inn did not, as some members of Town Council claimed earlier this month “put the town on the map.” Washington, like Sperryville has been a mecca for tourists for decades. The Inn has, however, made the town more famous, and lately discussions about the role of The Inn are well on the way to making the town infamous.
The desire of those planning for the town’s 200th Birthday Celebration should not have been hijacked by the owners of The Inn to promote The Inn instead of the town. There is nothing wrong with the sign selected by the Town Council, but there was nothing wrong with the designs submitted by two prominent local artists either.
While all of this wrangling is sometimes amusing, an end to it would be a relief.
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