DEAR EDITOR:

The three most important necessities of life are food, clothing and shelter. Let's worry about those now and land purchases and improvements to parks at a more appropriate time in the future.

Residents of Marietta and Cobb County are faced an unemployment rate in excess of 10 percent and residential foreclosures already in the many thousands this year alone (read the more than 100 pages of foreclosures each Friday in the MDJ). Add to these a few of the recent and projected burdens Marietta residents must shoulder in whole or in part; the additional $5 million in bond debt on the Conference Center with which our city government has just saddled us, the average $200 per home increase in 2009 property taxes due to the cut in the Homestead Exemption Grant, payments on the $115 million in Tax Anticipation Notes Cobb added last March and the just indicated and upcoming Board of Light and Water rate increases for both water and power.

Nationwide, the job market is not growing, new home sales are declining despite the $8,000 first-time-buyers tax credit and there is significant concern worldwide as to the ability of our nation (read that as the individual U.S. taxpayer) to handle the existing debt, much less the additional federal giveaway plans on the drawing board.

Despite all of this, our astute city fathers think now is the time to add to the burden of the Marietta taxpayer with more bond debt. We need to tell them that their priorities are wrong and vote this bond down.

Letter-writer Steve Imler (Wednesday's MDJ) stated that among his many reasons to support the parks bond, "The economy will likely have improved by the time the money begins to be spent and millage rates are adjusted."

Municipal bonds normally begin paying semi-annual interest six months after the date of issue. Use of the proceeds from the proposed $25 million issue has no bearing on the timing of bond interest payments and the money for those payments will need to be found shortly after issuance.

Too, he writes and we hear continuously that land prices are down and interest rates low, making this an opportune time to buy more land for greenspace. Folks, I don't see real estate developers rushing to gobble up all of the land. What I do see is developers facing bankruptcy and foreclosure because they are sitting with huge inventories of unsold land and houses. The land available for parks isn't going away next week, next month or next year and be assured, interest rates are not going up any time in the near future.

R.S. Pino
Marietta