Re: Waste in Fayetteville government:

To Fayetteville City Manager Joe Morton: Thank you for your reply to my concerns regarding waste in the city of Fayetteville operations. I am genuinely sorry that one of our employees has lost his job over it. I will assume it was not because of this one incident, but a history of job performance issues that resulted in his dismissal.

My intent was to see that taxpayers’ money was and will be spent wisely. Both the public and private sector must adjust to these new lean times that we now experience.

The citizens of Fayette County in particular have and will be affected financially in a negative way from the slowdown of the economy and high energy costs.

So many of our fellow citizens and taxpayers work for, are retired from, or are indirectly affected by the airline and construction industry. All have suffered from loss of jobs, reduction of pay and benefits in the past and present. Unfortunately the future looks like it will be getting worse before we see any positive changes.

The elected officials in any area of government are supposed to represent the best interests of the folks that elected them. Most are hard-working taxpayers trying to keep their heads above water and have little time to participate in the process. Of course, some actually work within the government.

I am aware that it is a difficult balancing act to treat our public employees with fair wages and benefits within a reasonable budget provided by the taxpayers. The fact is, however, that all public employees, both hired and elected, work FOR the taxpayers; thus the taxpayers’ best interests should always be the first priority.

I am sad to say that as of late, the elected officials of Fayette County have been making employees their first priority over the taxpayers.

When there are severe budget shortfalls due to reduced tax revenue from all areas, it should be elected officials’ and department heads’ priority to find ways to operate WITHIN the existing reduced tax revenue world we find ourselves in today.

Instead, it appears our public employees will not be asked to make any sacrifices [that] so many of the taxpayers that provide the resources to run the government have made and will be making in the future.

From what I see, most if not all Fayette government employees will be getting pay and benefit increases while a very large proportion of the taxpayers that make their living in the private arena are suffering from loss of jobs, reduced income and benefits while costs of everything are going up and property values are either stagnant or going down.

As a life-long conservative that moved to Fayette County because of its general conservative values, I am saddened to be witnessing a metamorphosis of our elected officials to tax-and-spend politicians.

I hope this trend can be reversed. If not, the relocation of Fayette citizens to counties south of Fayette will not only continue but will accelerate.

Victor Remeneski

Fayetteville, Ga.

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