Written in response to the letter “Online payment fee should be waived during pandemic.”

No doubt that my letter is disappointing to some. It was written before I had heard back from the Summit County treasurer, and his getting back to me is appreciated, and anyone else’s side of this should be heard.

But it is simple for me: In my life, this is the only time, by the only entity, that I have been charged extra for the method of payment rendered. (The only other instance was paying for gasoline, where it was cheaper if you used cash.) So it is far from normal for me. If you replaced fee with tax, it would be like taxing your method of how you pay your taxes. It seems that the cost of doing business might be getting passed along to the taxpayers.

I overstepped when I thought maybe the treasurer should step down. He has the hand dealt him. The gist of my argument is that it isn’t normal for me to pay a fee on a method of payment. I cannot imagine that anyone would want to see that as a norm. And it does appear rare that this is a norm for any other instance that anyone would pay for anything.