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Dissolution fairly redistributes taxes

Posted 9/22/11

To the Editor: Make no mistake: Dissolution is all about taxes. Many people living in the town of Potsdam (Village and Town Outside Village) make their living at four of the biggest not-for-profit …

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Dissolution fairly redistributes taxes

Posted

To the Editor:

Make no mistake: Dissolution is all about taxes.

Many people living in the town of Potsdam (Village and Town Outside Village) make their living at four of the biggest not-for-profit institutions in the Town – the two colleges, the hospital, and the public schools.

Everyone cares about the viability and sustainability of those institutions.

Those institutions belong to the entire town (Village and TOV).

Moreover, there are those who use the library, the museum, recreation facilities, the theater, bicycle sales and repair facilities, and countless other shops that make downtown the place to go.

Downtown is the place from which economic development begins and spreads.

So, how do the folk from the Town Outside the Village get to where they want to go?

You’re right: the Village roads.

Unfortunately, when it comes to taxes for road/highway maintenance and repair, only the Village carries that burden.

Those taxes should be shared throughout the Town (Village and/or TOV).

This is not an argument about “expecting them (TOV) to pay for services they neither want nor need.”

To put it another way, dissolution is not about library tax, shared revenue from sales tax distribution, or water and sewer service, or trash pick up.

It’s about paying for the service most folk from the TOV use every day: redistributing town highway/public works taxes so everyone pays their fair share.

That is what’s expected in a democracy.

This should have happened a long time ago.

This certainly will happen if the Village is dissolved.

How does it happen with the alternative?

Bob Wheeler

Potsdam