The mayor of Elizabeth City cast the deciding vote — “no” — on a $926,000 revitalization project called “Streetscape” Monday night. The article explains it here. Outrage is directed at the “loss” of $500,000 which was promised by the state.
Without discussing any other aspect of the project’s merits or faults, I’m reflecting that if that state funding cost was evenly divided across the state’s 8.4 million residents, each of us would pay about 6 cents to revitalize Elizabeth City’s Main Street. My family’s share would be 54 cents.
I know this completely and flagrantly disregards all the uneven distribution of taxation among individuals and corporations, whether income-, excise-, or other instrument of revenue. But my thought is just that everybody in the state, to some small extent, had a stake in the single vote of the mayor of Elizabeth City Monday night.
Half a million here and there starts to be real money to somebody, eventually. Thanks, Your Honor.
