Foxx Whips Out Veto Stamp; UPDATE: Council Approves Budget, Kills Tax Hike, Scraps Pricey Capital Plan
Mayor Anthony Foxx this afternoon vetoed the budget floated by six councilmembers that would have included a 2.44-cent tax increase to fund a $657 million capital plan without $119 million for Foxx’s coveted Streetcar to Nowhere. The council approved that budget with a 6-4 vote (James Mitchell, absent) and Foxx promptly whipped out the veto stamp. Well, straw veto stamp. The official vote comes at tonight’s council meeting, with a likely vote to override the veto slated for Tuesday, assuming council can’t get the seven votes needed tonight.
UPDATE: More on this to follow; for now, I’m going to try to catch a few hours of sleep, recapture a decent caffeine buzz, and ponder whether Warren Cooksey is a Machiavellian maestro or just a lucky shmuck who benefitted from a mayor and a gaggle of tax-and-spend Democrats gone mad for a streetcar.
Long story short: after it became apparent Monday night that there weren’t enough votes to override Foxx’s veto, councilmembers voted 7-4 to approve a budget that keeps the tax rate the same, essentially kicks the city’s capital plan down the road, and allows it to move forward with an operating budget that includes 3-percent raises for city employees and extends benefits to same-sex partners of city employees.
The no-tax-hike budget was essentially the same proposal that Republican Councilmember Warren Cooksey made two weeks ago as a substitute motion, after he and Republican Andy Dulin were joined by four Democrats in rejecting the city manager’s recommended budget, which included an 8-percent tax hike to fund a $926 million capital plan.
Cooksey’s proposal was shot down at that time. It was resurrected Monday night by Councilmember David Howard, a Democrat who originally voted to support the city manager’s tax-hike budget and had voted against the so-called comprise 2.44-cent tax hike plan. While he didn’t have a vote on it, Foxx indicated he also supported killing the capital plan to pass a budget.
Howard made the motion after failing to gain enough for support for an alternate plan he had pitched, along with Democrats Patsy Kinsey, John Autry, James Mitchell and LaWana Mayfield, which included a 3.16-cent tax hike to fund a $797 million capital plan that included the streetcar project.
The same crew of Democrats voted to scrap the whole capital plan – cutting off their noses to save a streetcar? – and support a no-tax-increase budget, which Cooksey and Dulin also voted to support. Democrats Michael Barnes, Patrick Cannon, Beth Pickering and Claire Fallon (who all supported the 2.44-cent hike budget, along with Cooksey and Dulin) voted in dissent.
So did Cooksey pull off a slow-roll, long con to corner enough Democrats into voting to kill a tax hike altogether; or did the same guy who less than 24 hours ago supported a smaller tax hike just get lucky and stumble across enough Democrats willing to dump a tailored capital plan to keep the wild dreams of a half-billion streetcar from coming completely off the tracks?
I need more sleep and extra caffeine to figure that one out.
Thoughts?
We need your help! If you like PunditHouse, please consider donating to us. Even $5 a month can make a difference!
Short URL: https://pundithouse.com/?p=10357
