Bozeman City Commissioner Jeff Krauss visited The KMMS Morning Soapbox with Tom and Shane to talk about the parks and trails tax. (Listen to specifics of the tax below.)

Monday night the City Commission voted in a $200 a year property tax increase to cover parks and trails because after demanding parks in every subdivision since the beginning of time they can no longer afford to maintain them under the current budget.

I guess living within their means is something foreign to this body. Something the rest of us do every day.

It would sure be nice if each of us could tax our neighbor to help us out. But we’re also a neighbor.

So, the time has come for homeowners to step up and pay their fair share of these imposed parks and trails.

Your assessment will be based on the lot size of your property. Those with bigger square footage will pay more those with less will pay less.

The average will be near a $200 a year increase.

From the plan: We are suggesting continuing to use a per-square-foot assessment method that mirrors what we use for street and tree maintenance purposes. Assessment is applied to the square footage of the lot. We estimate the first-year assessment to be $0.018 per square foot.

Not to worry. Two hundred dollars divided by 12 months is only $16.66 per month. I mean we’re only talking about a large pizza once a month here. What’s the problem?

You can have pristine parks and lose weight at the same time. Problem solved.

The only redeeming thing about this vote is that it will have to go before the voters in the November 2019 election along with the Law and Justice center proposal.

I would never pretend to tell anyone how to vote however one more pizza a month might be one pizza too many.

Perhaps a better budget process could be devised that would maintain our parks and trails with current incomes. I guess that’s pretty wacky thinking on my part.

More From KMMS-KPRK 1450 AM