Budget Restraints

Now, I will admit, apparently my little rant on the campfire thing was skewed. Hey, I am glad I was "wrong", however, even though I got the word right from the Town office, I am allowed to burn in my pit...I still claim the By-Law is worded incorrectly. Oh well, that said..I am off on yet another District rant.
  A while back, I noticed the District was going on about choosing a new Town logo. Hellooooo...WTF was wrong with the original? Is there a time limit to Logos? Is a catchy Logo suddenly going to cause an influx of tourists? Then, before going off the deep end, I thought I had best check out my facts. Well, needless to say, I was too damn lazy to click back and forth through a year of council briefs, so I really don't have too many facts, however I am going to rant on anyhow.
   O.K. been here over 9 years. The town had a logo when I got here. Why suddenly do they have to go out on a limb and change it? Now I see that all the town vehicles have been repainted with the huge logo, claiming we are the "playground of the Peace" Helllooooo...Really? How much did all this set us back, and, as I was too lazy, what profit are we going to recoup from spending this cash?
  It seems the new deal is "Re Branding" and it seems the whole of the Peace is in on this movement. Now, my Mom always said," you can't  make a silk purse out of a sow's ear". Is this what we are trying to do with the extensive bright coloured paint jobs? Re Branding, Re Zoning, regurgitating....I mean it. Why are we spending money, when it seems taxes have gone up. Perhaps we could have kept the taxes down, if we didn't go on a spending spree. Lets put some sidewalks in, and keep the old logo...
  See, I notice this insane spending all about. Now the Clinic...got some guy who has a plum job, in fact it seems he has a couple different ones, with the clinic. He has hired other people to dig holes in the lawn, for...wait for it...trees!! Yes, we are going to have some lovely trees (likely no where near cheap) plopped in the front lawn of the Clinic. Why do we need trees? Really, we need a million other things to make that clinic a viable tax sponge, but, we will get trees!
  Sick and tired of the stupidity that occurs with tax dollars!!! I can't spend my personal money like that, cripes, I would lose my car, my house, and my ability to eat, if I did what they do with the money I am required to hand over. See, the difference is...if they need more money, they can simply raise taxes! What a bargain..just like Hydro,overspend, or get things you want (but don't need) and just up the rates. This is the amazing cornucopia we used to read about. The horn of plenty..just keep taking out, and it refills magically!!
  See, I, personally think, we have gone backwards in the way things are done. I have been around long enough to see things become so top heavy, that money is sucked up before it ever gets to where it is supposed to be used. 
  My parents never paid taxes like I do. They could not imagine the sheer waste of hard earned money. I have to watch it happen every day. Yes, I am cheap, but that is because of the way I was raised. I was raised in a time that my Mother had a button tin, a button fell off a shirt or pants, into the tin, to find one to sew on, and keep that shirt or pants in use. Zippers, yep, used to replace those suckers. Rubber kits for bike tire fixings, blow up mattress fixings, whatever, or...rubber boots! I know how to sew a rip, I have, in the past, repaired woolen socks with patches. The world of waste was unimaginable when I grew up. Garbage dumps were much smaller, folks just didn't throw anything out, until it was of no use. No plastic anywhere!
  Now we have become "GREEN"! F*Ck the lot of you Greenies!! Your sh*t destroyed the environment far more than any emissions, or pipelines. Your whine about saving the trees, brought about plastic!! Your plastic has brought about the world of waste. Everything is thrown away, dumps are filled with crap, in plastic. Your frigging water bottles have killed far more than trees, which...Hellooooooo...grow back!! You jog, you bike, you scream at people who drive gas powered cars, you screech at oil and gas, you holler at the possible logging of "Old Growth" , well....what you have added in your environmental world is waste beyond waste. Your cell phones, your computers, your TV's, your ipods, and pads, and your damn electric battery cars, all get thrown away. Now we have batteries all about, hummm....better than fossil fuel emissions? You watch, we have seen what your damn plastic has done, when paper bags, and cardboard containers would at some point dissolve back into the earth, we now have things that will hang around forever, killing birds, and fish, and other wildlife, just wait till we run into the issues with all your blasted batteries in your environmentally friendly cars!!
  How did I transgress into plastic from the beginning, because it is all waste!!! It is living for the moment, without regards to the future! Th average person must take stock of what money they have, and make the decision on what they can, and cannot afford. They must ensure they cover the basics, with what they have in their pocket. The average person cannot throw everything out, and start from scratch (wouldn't that be lovely?). They have limitations, and if they want to keep what they have, they must stay within their budget.
  Our governments, large and small, feel they can run rip shod , because, if they go beyond what they have in the coffers, the hard working tax paying citizens will be more than happy to throw more of their earnings back into those coffers to pay for things we could not afford. Apparently we wanted a brighter, bolder logo, we wanted fancy trees that do not grow locally, we wanted to pay for a ginormous summer staff to ensure our town had pretty flowers, beyond what we had in years past. Things like the flower business just seem to snowball. I personally think it was nice to have some hanging pots along the street lights, now we have bizarre pots, filled with hundreds of dollars in plants, placed by every single district building, including the sewage pumphouse. We built a full facade of a house around our water treatment plant, graced with asphalt walkway, driveway, and of course, planters! Really!!! I can't do this, I am limited in my purchase of plants to my pocket, and although I would certainly love to have my home surrounded with 4 foot high clay pots on wrought iron stands, filled with colourful flowers, I can't afford it!! Even if I could, I would have to maintain this by myself, but....our town has a full staff to do this work!
  When I was young, all town beatification projects were done by students (I was, often, one of them). We would get some money from the government, and the student work program would be in motion, each and every summer. I did jobs like cleaning the cemetery, digging holes, and placing street signs, brushing and weeding, and fixing up a park area for a campground. We got paid pretty good for students, I would end each summer with a decent  stash in my bank account. The town would have some necessary jobs done, and we would wait until the next year, to see what other project would be selected. Hey, this worked, but, somehow, the opportunity for Youth program was not deemed viable by the government, so instead, we now hire grown people, to work at pretty good wages, to do all the summer work for the town. Perhaps they do get some funding from the government for this, but....bet it is far more than a student program, does not allow a young person the opportunity to learn work ethics, and the materials needed for this project , are prohibitive (in my budget restraint world).
  Why don't we get really green? Why don't we simply get some plastic pots, with plastic flowers, some plastic trees, save ourselves a ton of cash, because once we paint those pots with the pretty colourful town logo, we won't have to maintain it forever after!!! Oh, at least until, we decide to change the damn thing again!!