Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Wheel Tax Proclamation topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Washington County resident urges council to reject ‘wheel tax,’ calls for ‘proclamation of freedom’
Summary
Lucy Bridal, a planning commission member, told the Washington County Council Dec. 1 she opposes a proposed wheel tax and urged officials to adopt a "proclamation of freedom" refusing grant conditions that would require local taxation; council members thanked her but took no formal action.
Lucy Bridal, a Washington County resident and member of the plan commission, urged the county council on Dec. 1 to oppose a potential "wheel tax" and to adopt a "proclamation of freedom" that would pledge the county not to accept grant funding tied to new local taxes.
"One of our great Supreme Court justices said that the power to tax is the power to destroy," Bridal told the council during the public-comment period. She added, "taxation is theft," and said she wanted assurance that "Washington County politicians" would not "sell us out to state and federal politicians" by accepting grants that require local taxes.
Bridal described a pattern in which higher levels of government attach conditions to funding and said she would make a declaration at a plan commission meeting the next day to safeguard what she called citizens' "sovereign rights" and the fruits of their labor.
An unnamed council member responded, "I don't think any of us opposed to freedom," and thanked Bridal for raising the issue. The council did not take any formal action on the suggestion; there was no motion or vote recorded on a proclamation during the meeting.
The comment was made during the public-comment portion of the Dec. 1 county council meeting; any formal consideration of a proclamation or of policies tied to state or federal grants would require future agenda placement and a council vote.
