What drives Liberty Forward?

If you wish to simply explain Liberty Forward’s platform of Fiscal Accountability you have to look no further than the basic needs our city has. Yes we need more Police on the streets, yes we need to a see a road crew now and then, and we certainly don’t need sewage or storm water in our basements.

The simple answer is to throw new money at these problems. The sensible but difficult answer is to figure out why these needs have not been met? City revenue growth has kept pace with the population growth. We find it very difficult to blame the population growth on the other side of the highway for wearing down our infrastructure or draining our emergency services. This argument works for the schools but not the city.

It is a simplistic solution to think we can grow our way out of this without adopting better fiscal policies. We agree that sales tax growth is needed; however there are no guarantees, and further deterioration of our streets and further increases in the load on our police department is not acceptable.  

We commend the Police Department as the city department that does the most with the least. We see professional, hard working, and visible officers, in our opinion the best in the business. If we could get as much out of the rest of the city departments as the Police department gets out of their budget we would not be in the predicament we are in now.

As April approaches we fully expect city cash reserves to be lower than expected or predicted. The time has come to tighten our belts at city hall. However as we tighten our belts it is time that a larger piece of the pie be spent on basic services such as Police, Streets, and Storm Drainage.

Liberty Forward makes the pledge to continue to be the watchdog on city spending. 

Moving Liberty Forward requires public safety, clean neighborhoods, and good streets.

Liberty Forward pledges to participate in the solution, however that does not always mean going along with status quo.