Combine solar plant with jobs program for double benefit

The Tallahassee crime rate, especially the rate for violent offenses, is embarrassing, ominous and unacceptable. Many good suggestions have been made to deal with the problem, but I must agree with Merry Ann Frisby (“Jobs are key to stopping cycle of violence,” June 10) who said that employment is the key.

All persons in our community who are able to work should have a living-wage job. It is easy to see that this goal will not be achieved by the private sector alone. The community, working through its government, needs to make it happen. What can and should the city of Tallahassee do? I have an idea.

I recently read in the Democrat that the city is going to build a solar power plant. This is a wonderful project which is long overdue. The city should combine this project with a jobs program.

Here is how it could work: First, request bids for building and maintaining the solar power plant from competing companies that have experience in this kind of work. Tell them that the company awarded the contract must hire 80 percent of its employees from the city’s “ready to work” pool and to pay these employees at least $15 per hour for full- or half-time work.

Secondly, establish the “ready to work” pool from adults who apply to the city for a job, have lived in the city for at least one year, have been unemployed for at least six months, and have completed a “good work habits” course. It would be best to prioritize the list by duration of unemployment.

Lastly, pay for the city’s new solar power plant and the associated new jobs program through innovative progressive taxes. Progressive taxes are those which require the wealthy to pay higher rates of taxes than the poor, on a continuous scale.

Unfortunately, Tallahassee and Leon County have often relied on the sales tax, which is a regressive tax, to pay for needed services and projects. Instead, we should implement progressive taxation in electricity consumption and property ownership.

The more electricity any consumer uses, then the higher the utility rate they should pay. Also, the more acreage anybody owns, the higher the property tax rate they should pay. The increased revenues from just these two progressive taxes can be used to pay for the solar power plant and jobs program.

By the way, one of the good things about solar power plants, compared to nuclear, coal, and other kinds of power plants, is that they can be built gradually and still provide energy. So a “pay as you go” approach, using regular progressive taxation, can work.

The city of Tallahassee has a grand opportunity to do something truly innovative and helpful. It can reduce the crime rate, achieve full employment, gradually wean electricity production from natural gas to solar energy, and improve the lives of thousands of people in our community. It just requires thinking outside the box and political will.

Let’s move beyond old economic dogmas and political stereotypes and do what works for a change! Let’s bring the public and private sectors together to make Tallahassee the shining star of the South.

Gary Whittenberger, a writer and retired psychologist who lives in Tallahassee, may be reached at whittfamily@comcast.net.