Like the song? Pay the fiddler.

I stared at the photo of the moving van taking furniture from the Southern Union building for a long time. The near-empty building, still unfinished and doing nothing for our economy, was to be a savior of the downtown.

Most noted for tying up traffic on Lackawanna Avenue for a couple of years, the building is as empty as the promises of its impact on our city.

I question how we can continue to "plant the seed of economic growth" without a harvest. We continue to lose residents while the "well-fertilized by political rhetoric" garden is seeded using programs like KOZs and taxpayer-funded demolitions. Nothing ever appears to take root in a way that promotes serious economic growth or provides decent wages to a large number of citizens.

How can we continue to borrow when we keep losing? We can't.

The simple approach to solving the problem of credit cards is to stop borrowing. Such is one solution to the city's budget. Our budget is $6 million out of whack. The solution is not to increase the debt load and service. The solution is to cut spending or raise taxes.

Since the mayor has raised his administration's salaries, added positions, continued fruitless arbitrations and refused cost-cutting solutions and income-generating suggestions, raising taxes is the only remaining choice.

If we raise taxes now, there are two benefits. First, we will not increase our debt service. Less debt means more money in the budget.

Secondly, raising taxes will be painful to all. It's time we were all made aware of the actual cost of the Doherty reign. If we borrow yet again, we will face the same reality in a couple of years- with the added debt. The piper will call, now or when this money is used. I say pay now.

I once heard our mayor interviewed on the radio. He stated Scranton will always have a budgetary problem. If that's so, then how can we borrow today against a future with even less residents and less ability to pay?

It's the most unpopular decision, it's the most painful decision, it's the right decision.

Raising taxes is the right decision forced on the taxpayers by re-electing this Spend-a-holic Mayor. The slim majority that kept this man in power is the same majority that is responsible for the position we're in. Doherty played. Now he has to take the responsibility. Either way, we pay.

They got us here. We, the people, will pay the ferryman for the return trip.

All for one and none for the rest!

Those familiar with the ongoing Hollow Avenue fiasco must be as confused as I am over the recent comments of Scranton Department of Public Works Director George Parker.

Parker claimed in an article published by the Times Tribune on August 11th that the DPW can't muster the needed resources to clear the debris gathered under the Albright Avenue bridge after the last round of flooding.

"The city'’s DPW...doesn'’t have enough manpower and time to remove the remainder of the debris," said director George Parker.

Daniel Hubbard, a resident of the area, is worried about future flooding.

He told the Times Tribune: "If we were to get any type of heavy rain, the Albright Avenue bridge right now would act as a dam,"” Mr. Hubbard said. "“It's absolutely appalling that this has just gone by. Now, it's blatant disregard for the neighborhood."

Hubbard and the rest of the neighborhood have a right to be mad. Parker, according to documentation, ordered the DPW tree cutting crew to clear the Hollow Avenue right-of-way in front of the new home of the daughter of a then-democratic committeeman in August of last year.

Yet, he claims he does not have the manpower or resources to clear debris that has the potential to cause devastating flooding to the neighborhood Hubbard and his neighbors call home. How could he have the resources to do the Hollow Avenue work for one homeowner but not the Albright Avenue bridge work, where a whole neighborhood is on the line?

Parker needs to get his priorities straight. Better yet, with this man making decisions like these, the next interview he gives should be to announce his resignation.

How about a camera in the Mayor's office?

Facing another alleged budget shortfall of some $6 million and a request for a $45+ million loan, along with 14 failed arbitrations being dragged out in the courts with very little chance of success and a ticking clock on the Anglican American lawsuit, the Doherty administration is still forging ahead with a plan to install security cameras in the downtown.

While the $250,000 price tag is a drop in the bucket against the deficits the Doherty administration has created, critics maintain the cameras are a waste of money needed elsewhere. In fact, in Baltimore, where Scranton officials first saw the cameras in action, officials agree the cameras do little to help criminal invesigations.

According to an article by Matthew Cella, of the Washington Times, reported in a post on Officer.com, a law enforcement site, "Baltimore, for example, set up about 80 cameras in May 2005 in high-crime neighborhoods. Volunteers and retired law-enforcement personnel monitor the images in real time, but the cameras have not helped put criminals behind bars."

"Generally, the State's Attorney's Office has not found them to be a useful tool to prosecutors," office spokeswoman Margaret Burns said. "They're good for circumstantial evidence, but it definitely isn't evidence we find useful to convict somebody of a crime."

Cella's article also notes Chicago installed more than 35 cameras in July of 2003 and had its first success- breaking up a drug deal- in February of 2005- 19 months later.

Considering the cost of the Cameras, $250,000, the costs of monitoring and the city's history of budgeting maintenance funds for its projects once the ribbon has been cut, the screens of the cameras have the distinct advantage of being expected to do something in the next three to five years that Scranton's budget can't hope to accomplish in thirty to fifty years-

Fading to black.

How long can we continue to borrow, give away and pour money into projects even experts say are unnecessary, overpriced or, in this case, useless? The borrowing in the last few years is astounding and will hamper many projects in the future because we will have reached the limits of our debt-servicing abilities.

Is there no limit to the spending of this administration? What happens when we reach that ceiling and the powers that be refuse any more feeding at the debt trough? Where will the administration's spending pigs feed?

Taxes.

It's time City Council refuses to pay for one more Doherty gimmick. Without a loan, the results of years of adding new administration members, breaking contracts, giving raises to his staff, backroom deals and arbitrating instead of negotiating will result in higher taxes.

Doherty brought us to this point. Now he has to pay the bus driver.

It's inevitable. It's time.

Chris Doherty, it's your turn to pay to play.

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