What's increasing taxes is expenditures. We provide a lot of services. We spend a lot of money. There are two options - raise taxes or reduce services.

You won't have to pay property taxes on your car, which is a regressive tax. Let's work on reforming property tax ... [and] wait and see [what happens]...we'd all shift our opinions if we received more money from the state [than expected].

I'm not questioning the viability of the project ... we should be designing and building for the grant money we received ... and work hard to stay within those budgets.

That money is no longer there, and now there is a gap. We'll see increases in property taxes result from that.

Let's put it to bid with these restrictions and [contractors] could build it for less.

You can go back years and place blame, but the bottom line is that we have a budget before us, and we need to be responsible to the taxpayers.