[bilproject]

Originally Posted by Descant

In many, if not most, towns commercial/industrial properties constitute about 40% of the tax base. They don't get to vote. But they have learned how to influence local government, usually through generosity. In lake side towns, seasonal residents are the "industry", pay taxes, no vote, no kids in school. In an extreme, they can close a plant, move or eliminate jobs, tear down the plant and take $60MM off the tax base. Removing property from the tax base isn't generally available to seasonal residents, but you can have influence. In my opinion, the Gilford Islands Association, over several decades, has done well with the Town of Gilford. We have committees and other meetings with the Board of Selectmen, they maintain the Glendale facility where we can even have UPS/Fedex deliveries as well as USPS. "Dump day" when the town provides manpower and trucks to take away refuse that is not suited to dumpsters. Last year, a beautiful new firer/rescue boat. There's more. As in any operation, there are disagreements, but for the most part it's a smooth running collaboration.

In 2018 some island property owners got together in Meredith and formed the Meredith Islands Association. We now have a membership of well over halve of the unique non-bridged property owners on the islands in Meredith. We had hoped to have the success that Gilford Islands Association has achieved in getting first class facilities to allow access to the Islands. Island access is at a premium with limited slip and valet service available. The Meredith facilities have not been improved since 1980's and the most used docks are in poor condition and built at a time when much smaller boats were in service. We also must share the one launch facility with all of the other Meredith residents and day boaters from everywhere. If we park the least little outside of the lines or along LoveJoy Sands Road (which used to be allowed) we are ticketed. The town paid a large sum of money to do a study of the infrastructure and had an online surveys. The meetings were packed with island property owners who told the select board how inadequate and decayed the facilities are. The survey also overwhelmingly told them what was wrong and what needed fixing. We were led to believe that something would come of all the talk. As it turns out the select board was worried about some settling behind the town docks in town. Once it was found to be nothing, the board seemed to just go through the motions and have decided to do nothing at this time. If you remove the parking garage and expansion of walkways and fishing piers that were proposed for the town docks, improvements at Cattle Landing and Shep Browns would have cost around 2 Million if built exactly as proposed. Some modifications and deletions could have brought it down to 1.5 million. There is 750,000.00 in the waterfront capital budget. Why not do it? Answer, NO MONEY. We have no knowledge if the Library expansion is a good or bad thing although many schools and towns through out the country are reducing or eliminating libraries as we know them. My wife was a high school librarian for 25 years and in the last few years she worked over 80% of her budget was for online content. They even removed over half the book shelves from the library. It's the fact that there is no money for docks but 4 million for a library that is the problem. Meredith is spending 11 million dollars this year on town facilities that benefit the year round voting residents and not a dime on projects to improve the waterfront facilities used by islanders. We also went the whole summer last year without a fire boat. Meredith relied on a plontoon boat and a small gas powered pump to provide fire service. Gilford also responded to Meredith island calls often providing patient transport to the main land. The town could not find the 30 K to repower it's boat but did find 30K to buy a new police boat that is primarily used by the building inspector and assessors office. They hope to have the fire boat repaired and in service sometime this summer. If the town of Meredith would only consider us as part of the community too and listen to our needs and begin to address them we would have no need to vote.