Meals tax option in the news

The Fall River Herald News has an article today about the stance that local towns are taking on the local option to increase the meals and room taxes. Some local towns are passing on the opportunity to increase local revenue to offset sate aid cuts.
Dartmouth will have a Special Town Meeting on August 25th to decide whether to adopt the local option of .75% on restaurant meals and 2% on rooms. The state has levied a 1.25% increase in meals tax raising the total tax to 6.25%.
Leaders in other towns have considered this increase ...

... a burden on local businesses but this tax is a pass through for businesses. The restaurant will not pay additional tax but the consumer does.
Many of the local towns don't have many restaurants and the added tax doesn't generate much revenue for them. For instance, Freetown would see an additional $55,000 by adopting the local tax, whereas Dartmouth would realize $495,000.
The state has cut Chapter 70 education aid by 2%, which is about $200,000 for Dartmouth, and will not pay all of their portion of Quinn Bill police salary incentive which leaves Dartmouth an additional $163,000 to pay the difference. Other categories of state aid were also reduced. I think this gives the town a way to maintain the revenue to keep our services. What are your thoughts?
Let your town meeting members know as well. A list of town meeting members can be found here. It's not up to date but it's the best I could find.