Michael Dowe

To the editor,

What does the City of Laconia want to be when it grows up? Well, if we vote for the tax-cap, I believe that we are saying we’d like to grow up to be Franklin. With all due respect to the good people of Franklin, I don’t think we want to turn out like that tax-cap city.

I lived in Franklin for a year when we first moved to N.H. in 1998. At that time the mood in the city was quite dismal. The schools were poorly performing, services were limited, property values were low and tax rates were exceedingly high. Franklin has certainly improved since then but, as we see in recent headlines, they are

still facing difficulties related to school quality.

In my opinion the City of Laconia is much better off and has continued to become much nicer and a more desirable place to live with projects like the renovation of the Scott and Williams Building, and other improvements on Union Ave., the Allen Rogers project, the proposed river-walk and the Main Street Program. These are all projects which are largely privately funded but which will require infrastructure investment by the city.

New families moving into the proposed or recently constructed housing units will be utilizing the schools and other city services. There are times where the city may want to invest in such improvements that could require spending more than last year’s budget plus the CPI increase. There may be other years when the budget needs may be less.

It is a shame that in the richest country in the world and in a state where the individual tax burden is the lowest in the country that we have many families to whom four hundred dollars might make the difference between keeping and losing their homes. Sadly this is a reality but the solution to this problem is clearly not a tax cap. Markets and the economy create wealth for many Americans, this allows people to afford to pay more for homes which drives up property values close to urban centers, people there look to more rural places, paying more for property there and in turn driving up values and taxes and potentially displacing rural people. On the plus side this stimulates our more rural economy but people on fixed incomes are often overwhelmed. Instead of a tax-cap we should be looking at programs that allow seniors and people on fixed incomes to defer or lower their property taxes and still keep their houses.

Michael Dowe

Laconia