The Select Board voted last night to convene a Special Town Meeting to consider the adoption of local option taxes on meals and rooms. The Special Town Meeting will be held on August 25th at 7PM at the Dartmouth High School auditorium. Please note that the Town Meeting will be at the new high school not the middle school.
Curt Brown's article in the Standard Times can be found at this link.
I have previously posted my thoughts here. I don't think that this tax is the best solution to the problems facing the state and its municipalities. Essentially the legislature passed the responsibility ...
... for raising revenue to the towns. The sales tax surcharge is a regressive measure. I would have preferred that the legislature raise the income tax to pay for the programs to which they have committed. Perhaps it is better to let local communities decide. What do you think?
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Select Board calls a Special Town Meeting
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11 comments:
For years, town officials have begged the Legislature for the authority to impose local taxes. Here's our chance. We can take one of two paths. Down one path, we establish a recurring source of reliable revenue and move toward stabilizing the town's fiscal picture. Down the other, we do nothing, continue to blame others for our troubles, and move in the direction of further reduction of town services. I trust Town Meeting members to make the right choice.
You don't have to worry about town meeting voting for this. Anything to get more money into the hands of special interests groups.
It would be very easy for me to vote for this. All the same old excuses are there. Heck, I don't even eat out more than two or three times per year. Guess what? I am so sick and tired of the shoddy treatment the average citizen receives from town officials that I will be voting no. Live within your budget.
examples? i gotta hear this
"Shoddy treatment"? "Examples"?
How about those morally unethical contracts Gagne et all entered into? If they had not been exposed as early as October 2006 (when they were not taken seriously or given serious attention to until much later,) we would still be paying out. What we didn't know apparently wouldn't hurt us, right?
What about Mr. Gagne's sitting on the executive session minutes for how many years???
How many people had to ask for them for how long???
What about no long-term financial plan? How long did it take for us to finally get one? Oh, wait, we're still waiting.
Are any of you out there calling this being "in the best interests of the town"?
I know, I know, he's history. But his legacy still lives on and we will and are still feeling the repercussions of it for a long time to come.
Thank goodness for the opportunity for a clean start and a clean slate (or at least as clean as can be made, with the above legacy over our heads and the bad taste in most of our mouths) with the hiring of a new executive administrator. Hopefully,the Select Board will diligently look into each candidate and his background and choose wisely.
Good luck Mike! Best wishes and I hope Mattapoisett benefits from your knowledge and expertise. Dartmouth did not know a good thing when they had it but I too have moved on and hopefully you can too.
Let's get back to the topic, please. Are you IN FAVOR of stabilizing our town's finances or are you AGAINST it? It's really not a very complicated question.
I vote 'yes' to a tax on meals and rooms.
I am in favor of stabilizing our town's finances. I am NOT in favor of doing it through meals taxes. Eating out is often the only thing that the elderly look forward to. A better way to stabilize finances would be to DEMAND pension reform from our state legislators. If they break the cycle of defined benefit pensions, I would be willing to compromise until those that are grandfathered in to the current system are off the roles.
Write your rep and your senator then.. Stop blogging here. Have you done that?? In the meantime, is it better to complain and vote against everything??
Oh I see. Stabilize the towns finances but not on my back. Same old story. I'll support it but dont expect me to pay for it.
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