If Kirkland citizens think voicing their budget concerns will make a difference, you would be wrong unless you’re receiving subsidies. [The Kirkland City] Council will usually find ways to pay for their special interest regardless of what you say. Council’s request for citizen input on the budget is a farce.

At the end of the year Council adopts what they call a balanced budget telling tax payers an amount they say is enough and allows them to run the city. It doesn’t stay balanced for long, sometimes a month and probably for many months more.

When comparing their adopted budget with one that contains “adjustments,” it reveals the true cost above and beyond what it cost to run the city. This year it amounts to a surplus of $15 million they will spend above what they’ve adopted.

They are spending our tax dollars that do not directly benefit Kirkland. Million dollars go for flood control that benefits the County and Kent of which we only get back 10 percent for surface water management.

On regional transit, we were scammed into believing our financial contribution was to go for mass transit. Instead it was diverted to Seattle’s U-District leaving us with busses and traffic jams. On social programs, Kirkland and other jurisdictions have become deep pockets, a source of money, for regional interest. Instead we are bearing the cost for our parks, not the others that use them.

Robert L. Style, Kirkland