Grosso: Goal is to make city more affordable
To the editor:
As one of the newly appointed members of the City’s Financial Advisory Committee, I am addressing this letter to those few malcontents who have found fault with me for trying to improve our city by learning from the major mistakes of the past. Mistakes like spending far more than what we can afford. Or wiping out all of our Reserves which caused us to raise the millage rate to its highest level ever thereby increasing the taxes paid by a very large segment of our population. Or allowing MWH to withhold vital information from the forensic auditor we hired to insure we were not overbilled. Or building a new water plant we really do not need which has resulted in major increases in the sewer and water rates we must pay. No, I was told, do not look at the past…only look ahead.
Following are some quotes written by some famous people far wiser than I.
David C. McCullough: History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. History is who we are and why we are the way we are.
Edward Gibbon: I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know no way of judging of the future but by the past.
George Santayana: Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
Gerda Lerner: The main thing history can teach us is that human actions have consequences and that certain choices, once made, cannot be undone. They foreclose the possibility of making other choices and thus they determine future events.
Ken Burns: I am passionately interested in understanding how my country works. And if you want to know about this thing called the United States of America you have to know about the Civil War.
As for me, my only goal is to make our city better and more affordable. And one way to do that is to learn from the mistakes of the past. Governments have to learn to live within their means. What I am all about is smaller government, less spending and lower taxes and fees. Enough said.
Sal Grosso
Cape Coral