What do we get for our money?

What do we get for our money?

In a March 22 Vindicator ar- ticle, continuing economic development and airport duties were cited as the reasons for the admirable goal of stabilizing operating income for the Western Reserve Port Authority.

Other than paying the authority’s director and her new assistant $205,120 of the $375,000 budget, there are no hard dollar amounts reported to tell taxpayers of Mahoning County what we got for our port authority money.

County commissioners would do well to explain why, with numbers attached, we should fund the port authority, as well as what the authority has done to generate its own revenue, before cavalierly hiking taxes that could put viable businesses out of operation.

“We need an airport to be a business friendly community” may be true, but it is an inadequate explanation. Good for the hotel owner/operators for raising a stink about what appears to be one more bucket of slop for this region’s overflowing public trough.

Jim Cartwright, Canfield