On December 10, 2019, Tim Seniff had us on his MRVTV show, Currently Nameless and Unknown. We talked about the proposed Local Option Tax and the proposed amendment to the Waitsfield town charter. Waitsfield can’t collect a local option sales tax without the charter amendment.
Our session with Tim has attracted a fair amount of attention, and the response has been very encouraging. Here’s the conversation.
This LOT story now has more wrinkles than my linen summer shirt. Now we find out that Waitsfield’s town charter apparently doesn’t allow LOTs. The select board has sent the town attorney scurrying to sort it out. The prospect is very real that Waitsfield voters will be choosing at Town Meeting whether or not to change the town charter. No new charter, no LOT.
Over at the MRV Planning District, the LOT subcommitee is trying anxiously to smooth this mess. They’re minimizing it as a “housekeeping issue” at the same time as they dispense unasked-for advice to Waitsfield. It would be “good governance”, Jared Cadwell of Fayston says, for Waitsfield to vote to allow a LOT whether we want one or not. Huh?
Our friend Bob Ackland of Warren offered this nugget: “We did discuss how the select boards should be neutral on this issue.” Slow down, Bob. Mr. Cadwell wants the three Waitsfield select board members who favor the LOT to “make sure the vetting doesn’t go on indefinitely.” So the board members standing against the LOT should shut up while the pro-LOT partisans press their agenda? The Waitsfield select board is not a rubber stamp for the Planning District. Quite the contrary; the Planning District needs to be reminded that they take their direction from the select boards. I expect vigorous debate from the Waitsfield board, and we voters will have lots of time to do Jared’s “housekeeping”.
Mr. Ackland goes on to say select boards should forsake their voice to “make sure there are no negative impacts.” The negative impact is the LOT itself. Suppressing open debate is a negative impact. As another newspaper puts it, “Democracy dies in darkness.”
Have you seen the latest howler in the local paper? Just look for The Valley Reporter on Facebook. And don’t miss the comments.
In the whirlwind of numbers are a few funny dust devils. The story starts with the old trope that the LOT will turn the Valley into an economic miracle for just pennies a day.
It goes on to wail that the Valley doesn’t have enough taxes! The state gets to tax our visitors but we don’t! It sounds like visitors enjoy the Valley without paying for it, conveniently leaving out all that they pay to our inns, restaurants, retailers and services. Visitors and locals alike pay the Valley’s businesspeople and their employees, and that’s good because they’ve worked for it. It’s cause for celebration, a sign of our vibrant economy. Far better than giving money to a shadow government that hasn’t earned it and offers no sound plan as to what it’s for.
The newspaper story adds a twist that “investing 12 cents gets us 88 cents back”. No, nothing comes back. We will pay the tax, our visitors will pay the tax, and the unelected shadow government will spend. The LOT people should forget the tax. They would raise much more money by selling pretzels at the Farmers’ Market. They’re that good at twisting.
Yesterday (Aug 12), Alice and I attended the Vermont Community Leadership Summit at Vt. Technical College. A few other people from the Valley were there as well. It was a great opportunity to meet with leaders in other Vermont towns, community groups, and State officials. The day was devoted to leadership skills workshops, vision sessions for the future of Vermont communities, and experiences in driving community projects forward. Exactly the stuff the Valley needs.
Meanwhile, there’s a funny rumor floating around. It suggests that a Waitsfield couple known for being strongly against the MRV Local Option tax-and-spend scheme is close to being won over. Be assured that Alice and I are firm in our belief that the MRV LOT is, for a multitude of reasons, a very bad way to govern. Any suggestion otherwise would be apocryphal (that’s Greek for fake news).
At the 6/10/19 Waitsfield Selectboard Meeting, Alice and I gave a letter to the board members. In it, we expressed our concern about an event at American Flatbread authorized by the Valley Planning District LOT subcommittee. There were varying descriptions about the nature of it and the money behind it. We asked the board to get answers. Darryl Forrest assured us that a reply would be forthcoming.
Our letter was referred to Mike Noble of Noble Associates, a group who were commissioned to organize and conduct the meeting. Mr. Noble sent his reply to us.
We’ve published our letter to the Selectboard so you can see what our concerns were and what we asked for. We’ve also published Mr. Noble’s reply to us. His letter was also published in the June 20 Valley Reporter. We invite you to compare our letter with the reply.
And, if you’re inclined to read them, we’ve catalogued our Front Porch Forum posts about the LOT.
From newest to oldest . . .