Murphy on the Manchester tax cap

[KBCraig]

http://www.unionleader.com/article.aspx?articleId=f589273c-f9fb-4baa-a3f8-85595ae9e075

Keith Murphy: Manchester's taxpayers have been betrayed

By KEITH MURPHY

Manchester's Board of Mayor and Aldermen took a page out of the Politburo's book Tuesday night in an outrageous and blatant example of abuse of power so audacious and breathtaking it left the audience gasping. In so doing, eight Manchester aldermen proved themselves unfit for any sort of public office.

Dozens of volunteers of all political parties spent countless hours this spring and summer going door to door to gather signatures to place a spending cap question on the ballot this November. Four thousand voters signed the petition. These 4,000 voters divide almost exactly into equal thirds Republicans, Democrats and independents. This question, should it be approved by the voters, would require the board to vote by a two-thirds majority to pass a budget that grows faster than the rate of inflation.

The spending cap is intended to serve as a check on city spending, to ensure that property taxes do not grow faster than the ability of taxpayers to pay them. Regardless of where one stands on the question, the people of Manchester are entitled by state law and by fundamental rules of democracy to amend their charter in this fashion.

Placing a question on the ballot is no small task; it requires a Herculean effort to gather the required signatures. But once the hurdle is reached, the aldermen have no choice but to send the question to the voters. State law requires that they do so.

This fact did not stop eight of them from scheming up a way to stop the question from appearing on the November ballot. These eight aldermen voted against sending the question to the ballot and instead made an effort to send the question to a special election to be held in the dead of winter, at a cost of $40,000.

Why would any elected official do such a thing, waste so much money and stand in the way of the will of the people? Quite simply, because they do not represent the people of this city. They represent the interests of those who benefit by rapidly growing the city budget. They represent those who would like to return to the sorry days of Bob Baines and his 2005 budget, with its 18.6 percent increase.

They have no concern for those working hard to pay their taxes and their other expenses. And they know that if they can make it harder for people to vote by requiring a second election, therefore ensuring low turnout, they will have a much greater chance of swamping the question by turning out city workers en masse. Do not for a moment doubt that they would be praying for a February snowstorm to keep voters away from the polls.

Watching your elected officials abandon their oath of office and willfully ignore the rights of the people and the clear intent of the laws of this state is a sobering, frustrating experience. Aldermen Mike Lopez, Bill Shea, Betsi DeVries, George Smith, Russ Ouellette, Mark Roy, Jim Roy and Dan O'Neil all did exactly that Tuesday night when they attempted to waste $40,000 on an unnecessary special election just to defeat the peoples' right to vote on this question in November.

For that they should be ashamed, and unless they immediately correct their astonishing position, they should be defeated next November. If their smug photos still adorn the city's Web site after the 2009 elections, their obvious belief that the voters are fools will be sadly justified. Every taxpayer should work to ensure they are proved wrong. You can do so by showing up at City Hall today at 4 p.m. That's when the aldermen are scheduled to vote again on this question.

After putting aside the spending cap question until today, the last day they can order the question to the November ballot, the aldermen voted 9-4 to pay $271,000 for a quarter-acre lot that was purchased in July for $210,000 by Fisher Cats owner Art Solomon. The lot is assessed at only $173,000.

Had this purchase not been stopped by Mayor Frank Guinta's veto, a valuable piece of property would have been removed from the tax rolls, transferring the burden onto every other taxpayer, and we would all have given Mr. Solomon a 29 percent, $61,000 return on his one-month investment. As Alderman Mike Garrity observed at the time, "Maybe this is why we're looking at a spending cap."

Keith Murphy is a candidate for state representative from Manchester's West Side and the first vice-chairman of the Manchester Republican Committee.