Quote:
Originally Posted by MAXUM
No doubt it's a fascinating subject.
I do disagree it's not practical for "non full time residents" to have a say in budget related items ONLY. Otherwise it's akin to taxation with out representation right? So lets just say non-resident residents could vote as I suggested. You do bring up a good and valid point in theory all non residents could (if they outnumber full time residents) vote down every spending bill, however I don't believe that would conceptually happen. Here's why, property owners whether full time or not have a vested interest in the well being of the town where they own property. Certain towns are more desirable and some of that can be attributed to improvements in the aesthetics to basic services offered. To think that it is beneficial to starve a town where you hold a major investment seems at face value rather far fetched and self defeating. At the same time, there may be a little more resistance to frivolous spending or acceptance of projects that are simply way over priced and beyond what is prudent and reasonable for the town as a whole. See this is where I think to myself why the hell would full time residents ever vote anything down when they get such a huge return on a very small investment?
Not sure what the correct answer is I guess it comes down to the number of non residents to residents. I feel so long as the residents have the scales tipped slightly in their favor then there is no harm in letting non residents vote. That would assume that if all town residents voted in a block for a provision and all non residents in a block against, the provision would pass. However I don't see that ever happening, believing that most people are reasonable and requests to support the town, particularly critical departments would get overwhelming support from all.
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Your take on this would put the residents in the position of HOPING that non residents are reasonable and fair and even altruistic in dealing with their vacation town. Yet the very tone of this thread begins with trying to prevent the town from getting an accurate assessment of the value of a property and the advice about tax assessment is NOT to let the assessor in the house to achieve an complete valuation. People talk about making changes to their property that they KNOW increases the value and then trying to figure out how to keep that information from the assessors.
I understand and emphasize with the desire to keep my property taxes low. However, I think the vote should stay with the people that live in a town and are most impacted by the decisions made in town voting. When I know my town needs a new fire station (at a reasonable cost) or a new fulltime town employee, I can support that need, even if taxes have to go up. I would rather have the non residents dependant on MY sense of reasonableness and fairness rather than me dependant on them and having to live with the their "I don't use it so I don't want to pay for it" outcomes.