I want to thank Belinda Buswell and Marty Hamilton for their efforts at the most recent Joseph City Council meeting to find documentation and build community. They are so appreciated.

As one of the three people who took some time and trouble to write the letters to the council that were read out, I wasn’t too surprised that there was no comment on the letters.

That said, I do remain surprised that one citizen complaint at the last minute weighs so greatly against dozens of comments in favor. I acknowledge that the Chieftain article cites a statement about “lots of complaints that aren’t documented” so I went to the city web page to double check in the council notes that what I read was what was said, but council notes aren’t posted. So I couldn’t check it out. But is that the standard? “Lists of undocumented complaints?” and most oddly, allegations of “falsities on both sides?” What does that even mean?

The article also reports a discussion of imposing a transient tax on the displaced market, “if not this year, to be revisited next year.”

That didn’t sound like a reasoned revenue decision, so I looked up multiple “transient tax” documents in our county, all of which refers to lodging, not events. I also looked up event taxes for our county, finding none. Will all our vendors and yard sales in the city be paying the nonexistent transient event tax next year? Or was that just a gotcha?

Kathy Bowman

Joseph