Rupright seeks 50 percent sales tax increase, again

To the editor:

Your readers may be interested to know that Wasilla’s “fiscally conservative” mayor is seeking a 50 percent increase in the city’s sales tax.

Again.

After all, somebody has to pay for the pay raises he’s gotten and championed for his hires and the losses created by the sports complex.

In case people have forgotten, less than eight months after taking office, Mayor Rupright’s friends on Wasilla City Council proposed he get a $29,000 annual pay increase. Fortunately for taxpayers, this raise was cut down to “only” $10,000 per year by others on the council.

Then, mayor Rupright gave himself a huge increase in his paid time off, about doubling it, before the CPA on the council (Dianne Woodruff) caught it.

Now he wants the city to pay $19,177 a year, forever, to get the manager of the sports complex (which is losing more money than ever — on the order of more than $750,000 per year) into the state retirement program.

Rupright’s campaign claim to have cut the budget by 16 percent turns out to only be true only in one narrow segment of the city’s budget; the rest of the city budget has grown.

So, now he wants to increase the city sales tax to 3 percent.

To sweeten the deal, he is proposing that half of the increase would go into a capital fund for a new library. However, this increase would not sunset when the library is built; it would become a slush fund for the mayor and council, which could come up with all sorts of expensive money-pit capital projects that the people don’t really support.

Meanwhile, the mayor and council would enjoy a huge chunk of our change so that they could give themselves more raises.

And, they want to schedule a special election — at extra expense to taxpayers — to do this so it can go into effect all that much sooner.

At least, that’s how it looks to me.

Come and see for yourself. The ordinance will be introduced at the Wasilla City Council meeting at 6 p.m., Jan. 28. Unless it gets killed or postponed then, it will also be on the agenda for public hearing at the Wasilla City Council meeting at 6 p.m., Feb. 25.

You might also be interested in the mayor’s opposition to the state Department of Transportation’s plans for upgrades to Knik-Goose Bay Road and the Parks Highway.

Anne Kilkenny

Wasilla