Editor:

As a user of Franklin electricity I believe that those of us who live on a limited income like social security are being discriminated against if you don’t get paid until the last week of the month. The city charges a late fee of $15 if you pay after the 20th of the month. A penalty of 1.5 percent plus the late fee. Now how do we who get paid after the due date avoid paying these penalties that discriminates against us. I have refused to pay the $15 late fee, but I do pay the 1.5 percent penalty because I think that is a fair enough amount for being late. I believe that other ways to bring in money would be a better way to raise money rather than to tax the poorer people in the city to the point of paying a tax or to eat. The people of Franklin are way over taxed as it is. Living in Michigan most of my life, a state where before you could be taxed, a vote by you had to take place to see if the tax was a good move or was a ploy by the government just to appoint some friend to a job.

It seems that every time I get The Tidewater News, the city is imposing another tax. Does the city want all our money so they can control us? The majority of the city government are elected officials elected by the people to take care of the residents of the city. If they raise taxes every two weeks who are they helping? Are the poor of the city being helped by all these tax raises? Somehow I don’t think so. Why do the people of Franklin not have a say in how the taxes are administered? It seems the administration thinks that we the people are too stupid to know what needs to happen with ourselves.

I believe the city council needs to rethink the way that council meetings are held, they need to answer questions from attendants of the meetings. They give you five minutes to speak but not give you any answers to questions you might have.

What good is a group of people elected by the people who won’t answers by the people? The commonwealth of Virginia is not run by the people, but by people elected by the people to do work that help the people and not personal agendas. I also believe that we are at the mercy of government when what you think seems not to matter to them.

It’s time to make some changes to the way our state and city government oversee the needs of the voting population.

It’s time for a change.

Leon Sparrow
Franklin