I just want to remind the citizens of Patrick County that you have far more power with elected officials at the local level than you ever will on the national level. And the reason I bring this forward is the recent movement of the county supervisors to give a 10% raise to themselves and 3% salary plus 1% retirement benefits raise to the other county employees. Additionally, they are raising property taxes on the people that pay for those raises. They have apparently forgotten who pays their salary. It’s a disease for those who have broken vow after vow to serve our best interests and instead look after themselves, and the rest of us be damned. How many of you have gotten any raise in the last few years? I know those on fixed incomes have not. And their Medicare costs have increased. Personally I just took a 10% pay cut at the beginning of March. I believe many of you have also been cut in salary and/or reduced to part time so your employer does not have to provide benefits. So you definitely didn’t get a raise in your retirement benefits and you likely lost your medical benefits to boot. This is not to say that our county employees do not deserve more money. We all do. But it’s not in the cards for us commoners because the economy still sucks no matter what the talking heads say. And during these hard times I will resent it to the deepest part of my bones if I am required to pay higher property taxes---yet another cut in my resources---so that others can have more simply because they work for a government office. If they can’t figure out how to get by with what they have just like we do, and if they can’t figure out how to come up with a budget that keeps them within their available resources just like we do then ...vote them out. Melanie Hall Claudville
