This morning’s round up is brought to you by the letters C, J and the number 4. Jared summarizes a couple of techie bits about Ebay, Google and Microsoft. He also measured quite a bit of rain thanks to yesterday’s……

we were starting to wonder if you guys had dropped off the planet (or worse, moved) at the last blogger gathering.

have fun with the puppy phase

The reasons given to me when I questioned the increase was the extraordinary increase in the new garbage collections services that were up for contract this past year. In previous years the contractgs did not include such things as fuel increases. The fuel prices we are currently dealing with haven’t changed much in the last year. In fact they have swung up and down but for the average stayed the same after Hurricane Katrina. The level of service has not changed, in fact it may have actually been lowered. The new signs at the entrances are misleading as to how many days each week the garbage will be collected.

The newsletter used to come out on a monthly basis. That has been changed to quarterly and the content has been reduced to schedules and advertisements. The notices of public meetings, notes from those meetings and those items upcoming for discussion have been discontinued. In other words, if you cannot attend the meetings due to various reasons, you have no clue what has been going on.

In regard to the playgrounds. Those items have been requested over and over again. The Sangaree Parks and Recreations Commission have refused to accept responsibility for the parcels of land that can and should be designated as playgrounds. The various excuses include the problem with putting playground equipment up and being held responsible for it should someone hurt themself, or making them accessible to everyone.

During my tenure on the tax commission the duck pond was enhanced through a group of students at the Sangaree Intermediate school, sidewalks were put in and the recycling program incorporated. All accomplished without raising taxes.

Berkeley county in all it’s genius took the fire fees that were collected through the special taxes and paid to our local fire departments and made them a fee out right for all residents with the moneys sent throughout the county. This resulted in an $20.00 per house, per year increase. For the tax commission to be raising our taxes to include “additional fire protection” is double taxation.

The site that the library currently sits upon was purchased with Sangaree residents money - granted to the Parks and Recreation Commission - for the purpose of erecting a community center, adminstrative office, meeting place. This is where my departure from the commission came about. Once this purchase was completed, the parks and rec commission decided (with the help of our county councilman) that the property would be better suited as a library. While the library is an excellent addition to the Sangaree community, it does not serve the entire community in the way it was originally intended. Also one must realize that any new buidlings contructed should come from the Berkeley County Budget since the building is in all realities a property of Berkeley County, not the community that would be paying for it. The Sangaree Special Tax District cannot hold property, buildings, or any material items. All equipment is property of Berkeley County, no matter who pays for it.

The work of the Sangaree Special Tax District Commissioners is not an easy thing to do. They must deal with the county level bureaucracy and the residents. They spend their time (completely volunteer) and do their best for the community with little to no respect or help from the community, but the glass of lemonade you were given must have been artifically sweetened because it didn’t contain any real sugar to make it sweet.

I have been off the tax commission for three years, but as recently as last week, I received a phone call regarding the changes in our services and hopes of answering questions that weren’t being answered by others.

I have tried IE too. Same problem. I don’t understand why it works for some people but not for me. Tres frustrating.