I need your vote to make a difference on Bristol Selectboard

To The Daily Sun,

Hi, I'm John Sellers and I am running for an open selectman seat in Bristol. Some people have asked me what I stand for. Well, I stand for living on less government, listening to you and being transparent.

Transparency looks like this. The selectboard wants to spend $100,000 on a new communication tower when it could be done for $20,000 or less? They also want another $15,000 for a wage study when a simple survey could be conducted at no cost (Wakefield just completed their own wage study)? They want even more — over $600,000 more. We must be realistic, we cannot support a Hollywood budget.

Some in our town are really trying to save us money and I praise and thank them for this. For example, all the departments combined saved us about $180,000 in 2015. Actually, thank you to each department head for saving us this much each year for the past six years.

Do you know where that money went over the last six years? Some went into the unreserved fund balance which has over $1 million in it. I believe some of this money should be given back to the taxpayers and some should be given as a bonus to the departments who saved us the money in the first place. For a property worth $200,000, this would be around $480 total savings over six years. This is real money and it adds up fast.

Last year, as a Budget Committee member, I went to a class on municipal budgeting and I read through Chapter 32 of the municipal budgeting laws then asked a lot of questions from each department head, since they know their budget best. I then made several recommendations to reduce line items and save that $180,000 mentioned above. I call this being prudent and doing the job I was elected to do. I believe I'm the person Bristol needs as a selectman, not someone that does not understand the process or will gives no thought about how your money is spent.

On March 8 I need your vote to make a difference. Show the select few that you are watching and are concerned. This $5.8 million budget, along with an additional $600,000 in warrant articles, need to be dealt with. Otherwise, we could see more people selling their homes, being foreclosed on, empty apartments, and more empty store fronts.

With your help we can stop this craziness and reduce our taxes.

John Sellers

Bristol