As a Portland taxpayer, I read with dismay “City proposes 13 layoffs and a tax increase as budget fix” (April 4).

Apparently the city believes that, since Gov. LePage cut state General Assistance funds, the responsibility to foot the bill for the mostly unskilled immigrants whom the city continues to welcome with open arms, even in the middle of budget constraints, falls squarely on the backs of homeowners.

Many of these property owners live off-peninsula and see very little for their enormous taxes, including road improvements, while the city wastes money on one cockamamie scheme after another – like the recent brouhaha about making State and High two-way streets.

Common sense would dictate that, if there’s no more money left in the pot to continue to extend generous handouts to immigrants, the first thing that should get cut is funding for these new (and, in some cases, undocumented) citizens, as opposed to eliminating 13 firefighter positions (which the article said were possibly on the chopping block).

Starting with their lousy decision years ago to gut the historic Union Station, to putting that ugly shark fin-like structure in Boothby Square a few years back (and subsequently removing it at the taxpayers’ expense), the City Council has never put the actual residents of Portland first.

Instead, the council has made city residents victim to its own politically correct and misguided agenda, starting with the notion that a mostly transient “artist” and immigrant community is vital to the city, even though most of them don’t own property and hence avoid the tax burden.

Yet these are the same people whom the city demands we construct “affordable housing” for.

It’s time for a tax revolt. Let the mayor and City Council know that the largely unheard suburban dwellers, who pay all the taxes, are fed up with their ideologically driven agenda.

Joe S. Harrington

Portland

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