Mayor,

I commend you and the entire city council for holding down cost sand working so diligently on the budget. However, I was hoping to see a token sacrifice in your group's paychecks. The citizens of Roanoke Rapids are often overlooked when decisions have been made concerning our welfare.

With that being said, I pray my representative Suetta Scarbrough makes a motion and opens the table for a cut in city council's expense and I hope Ernest Bobbitt backs her up with a second for the motion and finally brings this issue to a vote.

Some of you have been financially heroic (while others have not).

Your gestures of returning your pay and donating it to causes in the city are heroic but that is not fair to everyone.

The public has to suffer as a whole group and we want the same from you council members.  We want your commitment that you are willing to suffer with us.

Sure, being on city council is a lot of work and you deserve pay, but paying higher taxes requires every man and woman in this city to work harder and sacrifice more, too.

Much of our suffering is due to our local government's lack of control when spending our tax money.  I cannot imagine you fine people asking others in our city to sacrifice again without making a concession yourselves.

You have asked the city manager to cut cost cost without offering any concessions and not one of you has made a real effort to cut your pay,

Please entertain a motion to cut your pay today.

We are watching to see who is willing to step outside the box and offer some of your own blood up and I don't mean a gesture like donating your pay back.

I would like to see a real permanent pay cut, a hard budget cut in the entire group's salary.

Why not consider a 50 percent cut in pay as our leaders?

Being a member of city council is not rewarded in pay. It is about serving the public working hard for your community and doing what's right for everyone.

Don't ask us to pay more taxes until you have cut the budget in every possible area and that includes your pay.

Sincerely,

Jim Garrett

Property Tax Payer in District 1, 2 and 3