I wish the retiring mayor well in his last days in office but wanted to clarify an item printed in the newspaper during his outgoing interview: “It’s important to do these projects, but you’ve got to pay for them without killing the tax rate. You never want to spike the tax rate and you continue to pay a lot on the principal,” he said, noting that state and federal grants were used for many of the projects." Since 2005, my taxes went up 79% while the tax rate went down. I am hopefull the new mayor will reduce property taxes unlike the outgoing mayor.