Looking For Revenue.

During the latest review meeting of the Carthage City Council Budget/Ways and Means Committee meeting Tuesday evening, Committee members met for 3 hours to continue discussion on the capital improvement projects.

The Committee questioned city department heads about project priorities over the next five years and options for possible sources for outside funding. Street Commissioner Tom Shelley, Fire Chief John Cooper, Police Chief Dennis Veech, Parks Administrator Alan Bull, and City Engineering Department Head Joe Butler all answered questions about their proposed five year projections.

Tom Short, City Administrator, said the department heads appear willing to work with the budgeting committee. He said that each department head seems flexible on moving the some of the lower priority projects around within the five year budget plan.

Possible revenue sources discussed by the Committee include grants from local, state and federal sources, several possible matching grants, revenue bonds, and a half-cent sales tax.

One possible source for funding for the parks system includes revenue bonds.

"Revenue bonds are an option," said Short. "Based on the sources of income. Even though you aren’t adding income."

Another funding option is a special half-cent sales tax.

Committee member Jackie Boyer suggested that the Council may want to begin a policy of "set-aside" funds for certain large projects. Boyer recommended that the Special Services committee move forward on submitting a grant proposal to the Steadley Foundation for the $1.6 million dollar Memorial Hall renovation project.

"We should let that process move forward," explained Boyer. "Because we’ll need to see if there are any other fundraising ideas out there."

Boyer also suggested the city begin moving toward looking at other grant sources for each department. "We have some possibilities for generating funds," said Boyer. "May I suggest that which ever committee is responsible for this, separate from this committee, that maybe we need to start doing some investigation and impact studies on this issue."

Just Jake Talkin'
Mornin',

Like most, I'm just a little tired of all the calls wantin' me ta change long distance telephone service. Doesn't seem ta matter what time a day, them calls keep comin'.

Well, I got the topper the other day. The call came in with a different twist. They were sellin' a service that was supposed ta put an end to harassin' phone calls.

Now I suppose the best way for someone ta find out who gets upset with irritatin' calls is to call and irritate someone. The person on the other end of the line seemed real upset that there wasn't any interest in the service at this location.

We have, over the years, tried to come up with polite ways to get these callers off our line. It started with "send us the info, we'll take a look." Then moved to "we don't buy anything over the phone." Recently, the most effective response was initiated. Ya hang up. It ain't too polite, but they seem ta get the message.

This is some fact, but mostly,

Just Jake Talkin’.

by

Carthage Printing Services

Intro to the Internet.

If you think about the time when the Internet first started to become popular there were only a few thousand host computers connected to the Internet. To this small group of people the Internet was their own little world. These original internet users developed some standards (not laws, just guidelines) regarding the Internet. These standard or sets of rules were called Netiquette. The guidelines they set were the norm for themselves but many new Internet users are not aware of them Sometimes, violating these Netiguette guidelines can get you into trouble (you may receive a nasty letter or complaint). Here are some examples of some of the guidelines they set:

• TYPING IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS - This applies any time you are sending messages on the Internet. Typing in all capital letters is considered an expression of anger and the reader may think you are yelling! This is probably the most widely known and followed example of Netiquette.

• Unsolicited email - Have you ever received an email from a company or store advertising a sale? Probably not, but have you ever wondered why? A company could easily send out millions of email messages to customers nationwide to advertise their product. The reason you never get such messages is because it is an extreme violation of Netiquette.

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