Moultonborough Town Meeting Mar. 17th - Pay Attention

[tummyman]

For voting residents in particular, but of concern to all taxpayers, there are a few items on the upcoming March 17th Moultonborough Town Meeting Warrant that you should pay close attention to and ATTEND / Vote at Town Meeting if you care how your hard working money is spent:

Article 3: Requests $125,000 to construct a bathroom pavilion (2 bathrooms with composting toilets) at Kraine Meadow Park/Playground Drive. Even the Advisory Budget Committee voted 1 Yes, 4 NO to NOT fund this expenditure. Seems very expensive and there are other alternatives.

Article 7: Requests $670,000 to construct approx. 3000 ft of NEW sidewalk in the village center. Some existing businesses will have serious adverse impacts, lose signs, etc. Note…our historic Country Store will lose their front signage. So much for supporting local business! No formal Planning Board review. Sidewalks are totally premature, as no new buildout of the village has happened.

Article 8: Requests $85,000 for a sidewalk tractor with snow blower and sander attachments to plow the sidewalks. If Article 7 passes, the town will be on the hook to plow and sand the sidewalks FOREVER. Note, since there is little space to blow the snow, the snow will have to be trucked elsewhere. Labor costs to plow, drive dump truck, hire police officers/flaggers is totally unknown but taxpayers will be on the hook.

Article 12: Requests $250,000 for funds to “study” the Taylor property site and move ahead with a BoS/Rec. plan, not a community approved plan. This is purely, in my opinion, another back door attempt to begin building a Community Center that was previously rejected. This funding would be an open checkbook for the Board of Selectmen to not only study the property but begin to implement some sort of a decision on reuse that would not have been approved by Town Meeting in advance. Takes future decision making for the Taylor property away from Town Meeting and eliminates the Planning Board and Town Planner from a lead role in the reuse of the property, instead placing the full process in the hands of the BoS.

As you can see from the above, there are many reason why residents MUST attend Town Meeting on March 17th….less than two weeks from now. Had the town elected to reduce the tax rate instead of embarking on this spending spree, taxpayers would see a cumulative $.38/1000 reduction in property taxes IF the town applied these unexpended funds to lower taxes instead of spending it on these projects. And the $.38 impact does not include the ongoing annual sidewalk maintenance costs…..that have not been disclosed. Also, the annual School bond cost of almost $1M was paid back last year but taxpayers never saw any benefit, as the bond savings were spent this year on other things despite declining enrollment.

What is missing from BoS agenda…??
1. No tax refund (lower tax rate) to taxpayers who overfunded prior year taxes…this is where the funds come from for all this spending.
2. No payments to offset very large future pension liability….we are obligated to pay for this longer term
3. No payments to offset very large post employment benefits….we are obligated to pay for this longer term

Even non-residents should be very concerned about how their hard earned money is being spent.