After eight or more years of wandering around in some sort of Orwellian Never-Never Land, do we finally have a Marietta mayor that understands the mission of local government?

Mayor Steve "Thunder" Tumlin apparently squashed a staff proposal to lease the taxpayer owned seven-acre Aviation Sports Complex to a private baseball group for the next 20 years.

What is even more encouraging, he nixed it for the right reason. He did not want to use the Downtown Marietta Development Authority as a loophole to get around a constitutional law prohibiting one city council from binding the next council to a contract.

Over the last several decades the culture at city hall changed as we elected officials who had no personal knowledge of hard times, especially the Great Depression. Marietta city government evolved from one of fiscal responsibility and concern for the taxpayer to some sort of quasi-private corporate culture more concerned with finding creative ways of investing tax dollars in business-like activities than protecting the taxpayer's pocketbook.

There are two sides to a city's budget ledger. One side is called "primary government," and the other is called "business-type activities." Culture and recreation, public works, public safety and zoning are all considered "primary government" activities.

Using taxpayer money to construct hotels and recreation facilities for lease to private corporations, subsidizing and performing pro bono services for private land developers, giving cash gifts to local businesses, using taxpayer money to purchase, rehab and rent private housing, installing expensive brick sidewalks and underground utilities, speculating in non-firm electric energy markets and other "economic development" activities, are business-like expenditures.

A city budget is a zero sum entity. A choice has to be made between spending a limited number of tax dollars on basic services or on business-like activities. The city of Marietta has been expending way too many tax dollars on the business side of its ledger with little or no positive results. City officials have a dismal record when it comes to the hotel/conference center, tax allocation districts and a bewildering array of economic development programs.

Especially hard hit by the city's "Sophie's Choice" was recreation. This is how Wildwood and Burruss parks become meccas for public sex, why the city decided to solicit private vendors to run the programs at major recreation facilities and why neighborhood parks have become shabby.

To believe otherwise is to believe that city staff does not have the management skills to conduct its own programs. Marietta residents are under-utilizing existing park facilities to the extent that they have to be leased to private vendors and the $25 million bond will be wasted because the city will not dedicate the money to maintain this investment.

The question that was never answered before the parks bond was passed is where the revenues will come from to maintain and operate the new facilities and trails about to be built, and the old parks about to be refurbish.

When elected officials change their allegiance from protecting the taxpayer to protecting the people and corporate culture at city hall, they became a rubber stamp organization, government transparency decreases, dependence upon legal council increases, use of contractual loopholes (like the Downtown Marietta Development Authority) increases, exotic public-private business ventures (such as the allegedly not-for-profit Marietta Redevelopment Corporation) are abused, and unnecessary risks are taken to try and maximize the electric utilities income instead of providing low cost service.

Besides being an intermediate step into socialism, this business mentality of elected officials whacks the taxpayer and the school system hard in the pocketbook when their risky schemes fall short or fail. Examples include the $25 million parks bond, the $4.5 million cost of buying back the DMDA hotel bonds, a declining tax digest and higher utility rates.

This is why Tumlin's first major action in office is so encouraging. He killed a proposal to lease the taxpayer owned sports complex to a private group to uphold a law written to differentiate between sovereign governments and private corporations.

There are two aspects to any law. One is the letter of a law and the other is the intent of a law. The space between is called a loophole. Of all the entities in our nation that should adhere to both the letter and the intent of the law, it is government.

The last city administration used existing and new loopholes to break down the firewall between government and the private sector and turned our government into a land developer and speculator. Hopefully Mayor Tumlin's decision denotes a return to rational government that applies its talent and tax dollars where they belong - basic services.

Larry Wills is a retired recycling consultant.