After local taxes skyrocketed roughly 50% literally overnight, most taxpayers expected some relief in fairly short order. Initially, officials assured us that it was a "temporary, one time" tax hike. Well, here we are, many fiscal quarters later, with no relief in sight.

Voters will recall that Dawn Zimmer campaigned on a "detailed" 25% tax cut plan. We've known for some time that's not in the cards. On the eve of last year's special election, the state fiscal monitor predicted that we'd at least see an 8% reduction. Now that's not happening, either.

In this past week's city council hearing, we learned that we can expect a tax cut of... drumroll, please... 0.54%. That's one-half of one percent. When candidate Zimmer promised us "change," we didn't realize that she meant a few loose coins.