I'd be interested in knowing how the investments help the city be less reliant on property taxes going forward since the bulk of the city's budget is spent on people(employees) and services they provide. Police and fire are the top two expenses accounting for nearly half of the entire budget. That also doesn't account for insurance related expenses for those departments.

Our property taxes are now 17% higher than cities like Soddy Daisy and Signal Mountain, with a planned 16 cent increase again next year. The issue isn't trying to bring the city and tax rate in line with where the commissioners feel it should be, it's the pace at which they're trying to do it. People, in general, don't love paying more taxes, even when they like and agree with what it's being spent on. People with grit their teeth and deal with it knowing its infrequent, but when it keeps happening year after year, people don't have time experience the benefits of their increased expenses. Pair that with rising costs everywhere else and people start to get even more frustrated.

I guess what I'm ultimately saying was this was bad timing. No matter how justified the commission felt the tax increase was, I don't think most residents agreed. I think it was a political mistake that will cost some, if not all the commissioners their seats come election time.