Myth: It’s Affordable.
By Jim Conley • Mar 12th, 2008 • Email This Post to a Friend •
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The argument in favor of a Proposition 2.5 override for Brookline is that for the median single-family residence the additional tax amounts to a little over a dollar per day. The price of a cup of coffee. How affordable is that?
Eminently, if you look at the tax increase in the abstract. But consider that the average tax bill to which the increase is applied comes in at nearly $10 thousand per year. Consider the fees and charges imposed for services many towns provide gratis. Consider the “Brookline rates” (the cost of services charged to residents because of the town’s perceived affluence) and it starts to add up to real money.
It doesn’t matter if the money needed to bail out Brookline town government amounts to $30 or $300 per year in additional property tax burden. Any increase–at any amount–signals that Brookline town government is incapable of reining itself in.
Town meeting knew about a $10 million operating deficit when they approved a town hall renovation of over $15 million last year. The selectmen knew of “tough fiscal times” when they approved $400 thousand of new landscaping at the library and over $200 thousand in new golf paths at Putterham. The school committee knew that they’d have to find money for a longer school day when they gave School Superintendent Bill Lupini a guaranteed contract of nearly $250 thousand per year.
And now it’s a crisis.
Folks, the crisis, as Cassius might say, is not in the stars but in ourselves. The cost of living is driving the middle class out of Brookline. And to say to those who struggle to pay a $7 thousand tax bill that they ought to sacrifice that cup of coffee is ridiculous. We need to find ways to reduce their burden, instead of scoffing at their struggles.
And why are we discussing tax increases, anyway? We need a government that will begin to roll back the burden for those on the margin. Most people, I suspect, could find $6 million in savings from the Brookline municipal budget without any difficulty. And pass that dollar per day back to the taxpayer.
As long as we’re talking about cups of coffee, we’re not addressing the real problem–the high price of incompetent government. And the empire they’ve built to serve cronies.
Wake up and…oh, never mind.
Jim Conley is publisher of On Brookline.
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POGO ON BROOKLINE:
We have met the enemy and it’s Representative Town Meeting.
POGO ON BROOKLINE, TAKE 2:
We have met the enemy and it is us - the voters/nonvoters of Brookline who tolerate Representative Town Meeting.
POGO ON BROOKLINE, TAKE 3:
We have met the enemy and two (2) of them are up for reelection as Selectmen this May.
Today’s Brookline TAB reports on a unanimously passed MA Senate bill giving Selectmen the power to decide upon the term of a town administrator or manager, which currently is limited to either one (1) or three (3) years. I wonder if Town Administrator Kelliher lobbied the Senate on this bill. Can you imagine if this bill becomes law our Selectmen deciding to give him a term of, say, ten (10) years? (And a contract that he will design?) The current law is said to be archaic. But the proposed new law could be anarchic. What is archaic is Brookline’s Representative Town Meeting form of governance. And imagine Brookline’s Board of Selectmen deciding upon a term for our Town Administrator extending well beyond their own terms. Where’s the accountability? And the Senate vote was UNANIMOUS! Pogo’s take on this might be a variation of an old lawyers joke:
“What’s the MA Senate in the Okeefenokee Swamp?”
Answer: “A good start.”
Everyone keeps equating the extra taxes to some number of cups of coffee. So, I have decided that I will pay the extra taxes in the form of coffee. I’ll deliver the payment directly to town hall. No one should mind that I’ll pass it through my kidneys first.
BROOKLINE TEA PARTY!
This is a variation on Lux’s idea: Instead of Town Hall, we’ll dump the extra tax payments in the form of “tea” in the Muddy River, which would be the equivalent of passing through a lot of kidneys. Perhaps voters will read the tea leaves this May by voting out the two (2) Selectmen seeking reelection. The big question is “How shall we dress for this tea dumping?”