Suttle - Off In Lala Land

We're glad the mayor and his $140,000 a year finance director met with the bond rating agencies this week. Despite their optimism, the chances of Omaha getting back it's AAA bond rating in the near future is about as likely snow for tomorrow's big red game.

The mayor told the rating agencies he would push for an additional 1/2 cent sales tax for Omaha and for a garbage tax fee in the legislature next year in order to meet the obligations of the pension fund abyss of about $500 million dollars. Well, his chance to get the legislature and Governor Heineman to sign on to that next year, in an election year, is about as likely as snow today. It ain't gonna happen. And even if it did, the tax payers of the City of Omaha aren't going to vote for it and it certainly wouldn't be voted on before November of 2010 which would do nothing for next years budget or the following year's.

What this means of course, is that after the mayor deals with similar crises to those of this summer next year, he will push for a huge property tax increase to take care of the pension for his buddies on the fire department.

Let's remember that this mayor sat on the city council for four years while/before running for mayor and never iterated a word about the city's financial condition. In fact if you recall, in one of his commercials he was shown pounding a sign in the ground saying he would knock down taxes.

This mayor is in lala land and the citizens of the City of Omaha will continue to pay for his incompetence and lack of real solutions as long as he holds that office.