Ratchet back annual increases by electing conservatives

To The Daily Sun,

Bristol, here we go again. The select board wants $242,125 more to operate the town in 2020. This represents a 5.19 percent increase over last year’s expenditures. Did you get a 5 percent raise in your salary or Social Security to pay for all this?

Our small-town spending keeps rising by unsustainable amounts of money, yet the population has only increased by maybe 100 people over the past 20 years. Uncontrollable increases cause your property value to decrease, when across the nation property values are rising. Let’s face it, who wants to buy or build a property in Bristol that has a high tax rate when they can go to Bridgewater or other low-tax towns and basically get the same level of service or, even yet, use Bristol’s services!

Taxpayers, renters, those who own vacation homes and businesses, this is your money, and if you do not speak up to let the select board and the budget committee know how you feel about these increases, they will continue. If you do not vote and come to town meeting, but then complain about your taxes going up, then you are the only one to blame.

If you want to stop this unsustainable spending, then vote for someone that is conservative. In a small town like ours, your vote goes a long way. Let’s hope the budget committee can skinny this down to a reasonable number before it goes to Town Meeting on March 14, 2020.

Lastly, let’s not forget about the elephant in the room, the school budget of close to $23,000,000 this coming year, which Bristol pays about $6,440,000. Shoot, it costs Bristol taxpayers more to run the schools than it does to run the entire town. The November school potion of your tax bill had a 6 percent increase, where town/state/county were all between one and three percent.

John Sellers

Bristol