City Commerical: $20,000 Cash

People have to heat their homes and cook their food. Given the current economic times, we didn’t think it was wise to increase that tax.

So how does spending nearly $20,000 for an infomercial square with those valued bare-necessities?

When then Lakewood Mayor Doug Richardson was championing the cause of the poorer among us in defeating then City Manager Andrew Neiditz’s proposal to increase gas and utility taxes late last November as reflected in his heat-and-cook quote above,  it was with a thankful sigh we could return to the just-scrape-by daily struggle.

Then we read the rest of the article.

There was another reason council members said no: They don’t want to aggravate Lakewood voters before asking them next year (2013) to raise property taxes to pay for road work and street maintenance.

Adding insult to injury, now we learn – at least if it’s true and not the Tacoma News Tribune’s Friday spoof, that Lakewood spent $19,800 for a commercial that, in Maclean’s January magazine, was No. 26 of ‘99 Stupid Things the Government Did With Your Money.’

Perhaps in one regard Lakewood’s newest version promoting itself is an improvement over the ‘Welcome to Our Town’ video produced by the Lakewood Chamber in January of 2012 which featured gambling at local casinos introduced at the 1 minute mark of the four-minute piece. 

As if losing your money in Las Lakewood was a plus.

There is no rolling of the dice in the latest commercial, although, given what the Tacoma News Tribune is reporting, anteing up $20,000 in this heat-and-cook economy is a questionable gamble. 

Money plunked down on the felt now for a commercial is a harbinger of how the public will have felt in the likelihood the City pleads pot-hole poverty in putting a property tax hike on the ballot later this year.