 By Charlotte Glover August 17, 2009
As the City of Ketchikan continues negotiations with the IBEW and begins to look at the 2010 budget, I want to remind the City Manager, City Mayor and City Council where their money goes. Like most city employees, I am raising a family in Ketchikan. Here's a list of all the places where we spent our city earned dollars in the past couple of weeks, in order of geography: Tatsudas, The Cleaners, Diaz Café, Chinook and Co., Ketchikan Coffee Company, The Halibut Hole, Parnassus Books, TBC, Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, The Ketchikan Area Arts and Humanities Council, Tongass Federal Credit Union, The City of Ketchikan, Rain Country Nutrition, Downtown Drug, The Crab Cracker Seafood Bar, the Candy Shoppe, Burger Queen, Parks and Recreation, Ketchikan Youth Soccer League, McDonalds, Safeway, Taco Time, Waldenbooks, GCI, Chester's Appliance Repair, Westside Service Station, First City Players, Madison, Liberty Fitness, Island Pharmacy, A and P Grocery, The U.S. Post Office, Simply Bella, the airport ferry, The Narrows, Wal-Mart and Salmon Falls. If you aren't on the list, give it another month.we get most everywhere in the course of a year! Mortgage, groceries, kid activities, food on the road, lunch with friends, birthday party presents, a film for the library, dinners with houseguests and grandma, new soccer gear, a book for my son, yoga class, a pretty new scarf, envelopes and pens, school supplies, a cold iced tea regularly.the list goes on and on. The vast portion of the money I earn goes back into circulation on our island, paying city taxes, paying business owners and paying staff salaries. I also give 5% of my salary to mostly local non-profits each year and I've encouraged my father in New Mexico to donate here because we know how much good those dollars do in Ketchikan. I hope the council members will keep in mind that the money they spend on people on this island is the best investment they can make towards having a healthy and prosperous community. Those dollars come back to the city a hundred times over. Sincerely, Charlotte Glover About: I've been the youth services librarian at the Ketchikan Public Library for the past 18 years. Received August 17, 2009 - Published August 17, 2009 Viewpoints - Opinion Letters:
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