Carbondale Bytelife

Only sat in on last night's city council meeting for half a hour, during the discussion on whether or not to impose a $5 late fee if you don't pay your water bill on time ( it passed but only after some references to Hooterville and Green Acres by a member of the audience and angst from Councilman Lance Jack about the imposition of a late fee equaling 25% of the average water bill. In absolute terms, it's only the price of a pack of cigarettes or a tasty pizza from Little Ceasar's).

Apparently I missed the fun stuff: a proposal to increase Carbondale sales taxes by 1/2% and a motion by Mayor Cole to make himself liquor tsar as those topics dominated front pages of the Daily Egyptian, Carbondale Times (which still hasn't made it online) and Southern Illinoisan today. Needless to say, the liquor issue made the front page of the DE while the sales tax issue got above the fold on the Southern.

Anybody else remember the last election, you know, the one where Sheila Simon said we might need to look at reinstating the property tax Mayor Cole had worked to eliminate, the election where Mayor Cole said we were in such good financial shape that there was no need to even reconsider the property tax. Well, guess what, according to a letter Mayor Cole just sent out, apparently there's a need either for a property or sales tax increase. More on that after I get a chance to read through the letter.