Quote:
Originally Posted by TheProfessor
Nice newer huge police station, nice newer fire station, nice recreation center, subsidized lake docks, and on and on.
Who decided that town taxpayers should be in the recreation business?
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Lakefront towns often get substantial sums of money from boat registrations that they put back into docks, beaches, etc. These are all good for our biggest industry: tourism.
As we have national parks, and state parks, we have local parks and recreation. In many towns, facilities like hockey rinks and swimming pools were paid for by advocate groups and service clubs who did fundraising. Sometimes a bequest provided seed money. In Merrimack, the Trustees of Trust Funds manage several million dollars that benefit schools, library, parks, etc. These millions started out as bequests that have grown, some more recent that will grow. In recent years, we spent $100K four years in a row to upgrade 4 school libraries. We spent $300K to make gymnasium bleachers ADA compliant and rebuilt the playing surfaces that were 50 years old. Some years ago (250th anniversary) a group of citizens organized the town to build a park and bandstand at NO cost to the taxpayers. That's who decided, along with the voters. This goes on all over the place, but nobody knows it.