In an effort to enhance Coshocton's revenue coffers, Mayor Tim Turner announced an across-the-board 100% tax hike on so-called "sin" items such as tobacco, alcohol, fast food, soda, caffiene based beverages, and magazines beginning with the letter P.
Mayor Turner said, "The city needs additional revenues for our "statue on every corner" program. Federal grants, while helpful, didn't provide enough revenue to complete the 83 million dollar program." Turner cites the statue as necessary to draw additional corporate business into the community. He says, "We're hoping that by putting statues of well known CEO's on corners throughout Coshocton, we'll be able to draw in new corporate business."
The controversial program begins this May with the dedication of a Bill Gates statue in front of the Coshocton library. An engraved invitation, sent to Gates for the dedication ceremony, was returned with the note, "Mr. Gates regrets this obvious attempt at civic manipulation and cannot attend the dedication due to prior hair cutting engagement." Mr. Turner said, "You win some and lose some. We hoped for a full fledged Microsoft campus, but Mr. Gates felt otherwise." Mr. Turner added, "In response to Gates callousness, we're changing all city operating systems to Linux."
Of course, most Coshoctonians realizing today's date know that it's APRIL FOOLS DAY.
Saturday, April 01, 2006
Coshocton Tax Increase To Pay For Bill Gates Statue
Posted by Randy M. Combs at 10:22 AM
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1 comments:
At last, some proactive moves that are sure to make Coshocton more appealling. If they make them life-size, these statues will counter-act the impression that the town is emptying out. It will give a big boost to street life, since there'll be people on every corner! All the time! And to think that other communities are investing in frivolous things like education and infrastructure.
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