The Levy Lid Lift has returned for a vote on May 16. Our citizenry must decide once again as to the tradeoff as between their desire for personal safety and their wallets. The decision need not be overly difficult. Consider for a moment those things that so pique widespread community concern -- Taxes, Public Safety, and Property Values.

TAXES: By all means, taxes should be reduced to the point where they are, as they are for the rich, a minor nuisance. Better still to have a relatively small and hapless municipal government, thus putting into practice the dictum that a government that governs best, does nothing.

PUBLIC SAFETY: Why pay taxes when all that is needed is a good rap on the knuckles from the moralizers who promote greed as a civic virtue? Certainly, justice dispensed by a readily assembled and relatively costless lynch mob is preferable to expensive police with their fancy cars, well pressed uniforms, and lavish pensions.

Recent rather notorious, but private, executions demonstrate conclusively the public interest is better served with their swift dispensation of justice, and the elimination of costly and time consuming trials.

Some argue the ability to safely walk the streets or send children to school confident they shall arrive safely is something to be desired. This is short sighted. Does not dealing with risk build character and introduce our children to the real “ways of the world”?

Unarguably there is value to be obtained by interacting with characters many of them out of the ordinary, often threatening, but never boring. Why not enhance the probability of these valuable (and free!) learning encounters?

Schemes advocating various forms of wealth redistribution (be it upward or downward) are also served by this approach. What better way to redistribute wealth than by having you car stolen, or your belongings removed surreptitiously from your house? Fewer police can make this ideal a reality.

PROPERTY VALUES: Enhanced property values are not in the public interest. Property taxes are based on asset valuations, and taxes are, by definition, evil. Thus what person in their right mind wants property values maintained at their current lofty levels, much less enhanced? Commonly accepted thinking on this matter is pernicious, standing common sense on its head.

What better way to reduce taxes than to move resolutely to lower property values? In this regard, fewer police would also promote more affordable housing. Who can argue with that?

As you sit, pen in hand, poised over those maddening little ovals on the ballot, reflect upon these matters and vote wisely and with the best interests of you and your neighbors in mind.

Bob Polwarth

Des Moines