George Condodemetraky: Vote NO on Article 20 in Belmont

To The Daily Sun,

Do the taxpayers of Belmont want to spend millions of dollars on the Mill? The Belmont Board of Selectman want to keep this a secret from the general public. Only people who think alike are in the know.

I went to the Deliberative Session of the Annual Town Meeting held on Jan. 30 at the Belmont High School gymnasium. There were a number of warrant articles I had problems with, but I will discuss Article 20 in this letter.

Article 20 in the Town Warrant states that taxpayers of Belmont will fund $100,000 to the Municipal Facilities Capital Reserve Fund. It does not state what the money will be used for. Since this fund was started in 2006, it had accumulated over $500,000 and the present amount of money left in the fund is $176,992. The Board of Selectman has spent hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars from this fund without any notice to the taxpayers as to what they were spending it on. I learned that there is a NH Law (RSA) that allows them to spend money from this fund. However, you would think that a publicly elected official would want to let the taxpayers of Belmont know what they intended to do with the money. The selectmen spent the money without a whisper to the taxpayers of what they were spending it on.  

The solution to this problem created by the poor judgement of the Board of Selectmen is to vote NO against Warrant Article 20. If the Board wants to spend this much money on any project, they should have to go to the taxpayers for permission.

In our democratic system of government it is the voters who approve budgets, not the elected officials. Let’s show them it is the taxpayers who have the last word. Vote No on Article 20 when you come to vote on Tuesday, March 9. Contact the Town Hall if you want to vote by absentee ballot.

George Condodemetraky

Belmont