BRATTLEBORO — I am strongly concerned that it would be a serious mistake to cut library or parks and recreation services from the town budget. It would be a false economy, rendering Brattleboro far less attractive to both existing and potential homeowners, at a time when we do not want to see our grand list shrinking.
Police and fire facilities and well-maintained roads are crucial town services. A library, a parks and recreation department, good public education, and other quality-of-life expenditures are also crucial and go a long way to attracting good citizens and sustaining community strength. A strong community will weather hard economic times relatively intact.
I have spoken with friends, neighbors, and acquaintances about how they want the Selectboard to act in response to the voting down of the budget.
What I am hearing most, and what I myself think, is that the Selectboard should take care not to overreact to this vote, and to realize that the voters' concern is overwhelmingly to hold up spending on the Police-Fire Facilities Upgrade Project.
They feel that the amount the town is undertaking to borrow for these improvements is out of scale with our modest size and resources, and that the economic factors have significantly worsened since Town Meeting first approved the bond issues.
I hope the Selectboard will bear in mind that citizens are able to express their will only via the blunt instrument of a single yes-or-no vote on the budget as a whole, both within Representative Town Meeting and town-wide ballot votes.
Since spring 2013, the one budget item that has been the object of significant second thoughts and objections expressed by both Representative Town Meeting members and the citizenry is the police-fire project.
I do not sense that this is because the citizenry on the whole opposes investing in such a project or think the police and fire departments do not need improved facilities. I, and others I've spoken with, do not want to see a level budget.
We want to see a less-expensive physical plant project and a more deliberate, more inclusive public process that allows substantive citizen input on what is to be spent, and how, before the project's funds are approved.
We want the town to take more time, consider more carefully, and spend less money.
To speak now for myself: I am a 59-year-old single female Brattleboro taxpayer, earning a modest living exclusively from working as a freelance professional editor. As a result of the 2007 financial meltdown, like many middle-class Americans today, I am now barely making the payments on my mortgage and am looking forward to aging without a great deal of savings.
Every year I am having more difficulty making ends meet. I live in fear of having to sell my home and move and being unable live out my years in Brattleboro, as I had hoped to do.
But I am in Brattleboro for the quality of life, a big element of which is the library. If the library's services were cut back, that would only be one more reason for me to decide to bail out.
It is a challenge for me to meet my town tax bill every year. Nonetheless, I am willing to do my share of holding onto our high quality of life. Beyond paying my taxes, I have taken time to organize and plant gardens at Exit 1 to help attract more business and build our town's civic pride.
So I am strongly “invested” in Brattleboro. However, I believe the police-fire expense is excessive for the current economic times. I think the project needs to be carefully reconsidered. Not abandoned, but - at the very least - slowed down.
I believe there are quite a few others here of my age and income level, with the same financial burdens and equally invested in the community, who agree.