January 15,
2009
GUEST EDITORIAL
TOWN
AND SCHOOL OFFICIALS OUT OF TOUCH WITH DIRE
ECONOMIC REALITIES FACING TOWN RESIDENTS
By ENID MACKENZIE
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I am just wondering if some of our town officials and school board members are living in a bubble….haven’t they heard the news that we are going through a very deep recession and that people all around them are struggling to make ends meet, to put food on the table and to keep a roof over their
head? Or maybe this is not important to them.
They have had such a free reign over our pocketbooks that they think that our hard earned income is theirs to take.
Don’t the powers that be in Goffstown see that all around us people are losing their jobs and losing their homes?
And to think they have the audacity to increase our taxes!
This is immoral and unconscionable. Where is the compassion when our neighbor’s homes are being foreclosed upon while the people holding high administrative positions in this town are untouched by this economy….maybe they are living in a bubble after all!
To be increasing their own salaries and budgets in this time of financial crisis shows that they are out of touch with reality.
I have lived here for thirty years and I feel that our town officials have been on a reckless spending path.
And finally, we weary taxpayers are saying we have had enough.
We are in a new economic era with lean times being the status quo for so many of us.
Gone are the good old days when our town officials came back to the well every year and extort more and more from us.
The well is dry…we taxpayers have been bled dry.
Those of us in the private sector and those who are retired sacrifice so much to give our town and school employees their good salaries, medical and pension plans while we go without any of these benefits ourselves.
There is something very wrong with this picture, especially during these hard times.
Yes folks, the party is over!
Not only am I a resident of Goffstown but I’m also speaking as a realtor.
The ever-escalating taxes in this town has done an immense amount of damage to the value of every home in Goffstown.
Just this past weekend I took clients out house-hunting and when they saw the amount of taxes on the listing sheet of a home here in Goffstown, they said they would not pursue any home in Goffstown and they plan on buying either in Bedford or New Boston.
That’s our loss!
Other home buyers choose to live in Weare or Dunbarton and as a result they can save thousands of dollars by not living in Goffstown and paying our high taxes.
The downturn in the housing market is bad enough, but then when you throw in our high taxes and you are looking at a very grim real estate market in Goffstown.
You can’t imagine how difficult it is to sell a home in Goffstown with our high taxes.
One of the first things that buyers look at on a listing sheet are the taxes.
So for the most part, it is impossible to get home buyers to even take a look at a home in Goffstown, let alone buy a home here.
No wonder school enrollment is down….we can’t get people to come live here!
We are turning people away with our high taxes.
This is such a shame, because Goffstown is such a wonderful town, and it has been a great place to call home for the last thirty years.
It has everything going for it - it is a friendly, neighborly town, has the mountains and lakes and is convenient to the airport and highways.
With everything that Goffstown has to offer, you would think that people would be flocking into our town.
However, the bottom line is that people are voting with their feet and many home buyers are giving Goffstown a pass.
And unfortunately in the real estate community, Goffstown by now has a reputation for its high taxes.
Anyway, the result of our high taxes is that homes for sale in Goffstown end up being on the market much longer.
Then what happens next? The seller then has to start reducing the price - often multiple times in order to take the bite out of our high taxes.
The net result is that property values in Goffstown have been incredibly damaged by years of reckless spending.
Now we reap the result of that short-sighted policy and I hold all the happy-go-lucky school boards and town officials of the last few years responsible for the damage that they have done to the property values of every homeowner in Goffstown.
Any additional increase in taxes would be the final nail in the coffin for most of us in Goffstown.
Instead, let’s say ‘NO’ to any increase to our taxes and try to reverse this destructive course that has done irreparable harm to every home owner in town.
Better still, let’s reduce our taxes to more properly reflect the cuts that most town residents have had to make to their own budgets.
The town and school board should live within its means.
No one else is going out on spending sprees right now, and neither should the town of Goffstown.
It’s time for town officials and school board to sober up - the feeding frenzy is over!
Let’s make Goffstown an affordable town to live in once again!
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