And the Answer Is...Cap Our Property Taxes!

THE VOTES ARE NOW IN

...Regarding the question: "Would you like to see a 0% increase in your property taxes for one year?"

59% voted YES, even with large cuts to services.

27% voted YES, provided there were minimal cuts to services.

14% voted YES, provided there were no cuts to services. This represented the "NO" vote, since we can assume there would be some cuts to services.

So 86% of respondents would like to see a cap on their property taxes for one year, even it it means a cut in services.

The answer to the question was what the tax watchdog group Enough Is Enough (EiE) was attempting to discover when it proposed that the Board of Selectmen (BoS) place a NON-BINDING citizen's advisory question on the warrant for the upcoming Special Town Meeting on October 17th. It was denied, unfortunately, and this writer would have liked to have seen a larger sampling of voters that a warrant article would have provided. However, the BoS themselves suggested that perhaps a poll could be taken using the town's new website...once some of the bugs had been worked out of it.

Not knowing when that might be, and in the interest of time, I decided to conduct the poll myself here on this blog site and the results speak for themselves. We seem to have the answer EiE's initiative would have provided...and perhaps some insight as to why the BoS denied placing the question on the warrant. It's the answer they surely did not want to hear.

But hear it they must... if only to grasp the seriousness of the economic plight of so many residents in Hamilton. The Wall Street Journal recently posted findings by The Tax Foundation showing the states with the highest property taxes as a percentage of income. Massachusetts ranked 9th with 4.1% of income paid toward property taxes. With the highest property tax rate on the North Shore, you can imagine the role Hamilton taxpayers play in that standing.

"Budgeting by override" fortunately ended last spring at the Annual Town Meeting. Now it seems as though voters also feel that increasing yearly budgets by +2.5% needs reconsideration, at least in the short term. Perhaps next time EiE will, instead of asking permission, submit a citizen's petition that will require the BoS to place it on a Town Meeting warrant so that voters can decide.

Don't be surprised, however, if it calls for a BINDING resolution next time.

Hamilton/Wenham Officials Close Doors to Public Input

The following is a Letter to the Editors of the Salem News and Hamilton/Wenham Chronicle:

Closed-door meetings, even if not secret, send the wrong message...

In an era when trust is a factor most of our citizens feel is lacking in town governance and the School Department, along comes a group of elected officials that still don't seem to get it.

Last week, members of the Budget Process Committee (BPC) decided to have a meeting that included one Hamilton selectman, one Wenham selectman, one School Committee member, one Hamilton FinCom member and the school superintendent. When three citizen members of Enough is Enough tried to attend, they were dismissed and told by the Hamilton selectman that "the meeting was not posted, and it was optional for those attending to allow the public to attend. I polled those who were attending, and the majority wanted it to be a working meeting without the public."

He went on to say, "As for why we felt it better to meet this way, it is not to hide things; but sometimes to advance all of our agendas and do the work, we need to be able to let our hair down. We all spoke bluntly and pointedly."

I don't know about you, but I want representatives who speak "bluntly and pointedly" and honestly at PUBLIC meetings, rather than in closed meetings where the public is not allowed or permitted to even listen. Additionally, the entire point of the BPC was to improve transparency and allow for citizen input.

Come on folks, a "working meeting without the public" is just another way of saying "closed-door meeting" or "secret meeting," both of which are completely unacceptable given the public's already justified lack of trust in the budget process. This is exactly the WRONG way of conducting town business and only serves to enhance taxpayer distrust.

What the heck happened to the "openness and transparency" we were promised after the spring town meetings?

Speaking of which, did you know that as part of their efforts at "openness and transparency," the School Department is now requiring citizens to file Freedom of Information forms and pay a fee for any request for information such as where, exactly, roughly $600,000 a year in maintenance line-item costs have actually been spent for each of the past three years?

It's true. And thus far, even that has not prevented the School Department from denying EiE's request for that simple information. We have been told twice now that what they will provide "will not be a specific detailed breakdown of the Maintenance Expense"; and, "Please be advised that the information that you have requested is not a matter of public record and, therefore, I cannot honor your specific request."

Not a matter of public record?! Are they serious? If they can't even tell us where they have spent nearly $2 million of our taxes earmarked for maintenance, it's no wonder they keep asking for more. The last we heard they were called PUBLIC schools, operating on taxes the PUBLIC pays. Don't we deserve some straight answers to simple questions? Why do you suppose they won't give us the answers we seek?

In both instances mentioned above, the message seems clear: "Sorry, we don't want you to know how we spend your tax dollars."

I'd probably be angry if I were not so astonished.

Jay Burnham, Moderator
Enough is Enough Steering Committee

http://www.enoughisenoughHW.org