Finance Committee Meeting Tonight

The Finance Committee of the Everett City Council will meet this evening to take up the matter of Mayor Ragucci's proposal to apply $2m in free cash to the tax levy. The Mayor made the proposal in the hopes of providing some tax relief to home owners on their real estate tax bills. The Board of Aldermen voted last week to send the matter to the Finance Committee, citing among their reasons a lack of enough information to make an informed decision and the possibility that taxpayers would rather see the money spent on a Homecoming Parade or repairs on the Armory.

There has been a sense, however, that the Board voted to put the matter into Committee knowing that no meeting would be scheduled before the end of the year and the matter would die there. Any issue that is referred into a committee and is not acted on by year's end is no longer valid. If any action were to be taken, the issue would have to be submitted anew the following year.

Rather than let the matter die without a proper hearing, several members of the Common Council put forward a petition to force a meeting to be called.

The meeting begins at 6:30 p.m. It would be interesting to attend to see what additional information is put forward by the Administration and what rationale the members now give for denying this, albeit small, relief for taxpayers.