Mayor Palmieri Declines To Sign or Veto – Wheel Tax Resolution Will Become Law With Or Without Signature

Mayor Alan Palmieri
Staff Photo by Jeff Depew

Resolution 2015-05, which levies an additional County-Wide Wheel Tax, will pass into law without the stamp of approval from Jefferson County Mayor Palmieri. On Friday, the Mayor declared that, while he would not exercise his right to veto the wheel tax increase, neither would he support it by giving it his signature.

Mayor Palmieri said that he has been considering his options concerning the wheel tax resolution for several weeks and there are no easy answers. “Jefferson County is seriously in debt, in large part to former County Commissions that approved a large building program but did not consider how we were going to pay for it.” Palmieri said. “ I know that there are some people in the County that are opposed to the wheel tax increase and there are those that would rather see a wheel tax increase than a property tax increase. I hope that the taxpayers realize that this is not a either, or, situation. I don’t see how they ( County Commission) will get around doing both. You cannot spend and spend and spend without any means to cover your debt”.

The Mayor said that he just “can’t see a path to signing this when there is still no comprehensive plan to address our current financial situation or future needs.” He would like to see the Commission consider other options that do not impact the individual tax payers and he held a meeting last week with the Director of Finance for Jefferson County, as well as the Budget Committee Chairman and the Finance Committee Chairman, to discuss other avenues to fund the County needs. Palmieri also expressed concern that the current wheel tax is not enforced and, while some feel that it is a more fairly distributed tax than property tax, that is only if the tax is evenly and well enforced.

Three options were available to the Mayor-Veto, Sign or Decline to sign without veto. With strong support from the County Commission, Palmieri said that vetoing and returning the document to the County Commission would be just prolonging the process and he agrees that something must be done to address the County debt. But, he is in favor of identifying a plan of action instead of a piece mill approach. “Time and time again we return to the taxpayer to fix the problems that begin on the Commission floor. We need a better plan and we needed it yesterday. What we got was a million dollar band-aid”