Brattleboro residents can vote on March 3 ( or by early voting now at the Town Clerk’s Office) about whether we should add a 1% optional sales tax here in Brattleboro.
This is a difficult issue because many fear it will hurt our downtown businesses and Brattleboro residents will also pay this extra 1% tax.( It won’t just be people who live out – of -town or out -of -state. ) On the other hand, it has been estimated that it could raise around $600,000 in extra revenue for the town.
I haven’t heard much public comment about this issue and I ‘d be interested to know what I-Brattleboro readers think.
Please vote on March 3rd and also let your Town Meeting Representative know your opinion. Town Meeting Reps will be voting on this later in March and they could benefit from your input on this difficult decision.
Judy Davidson
District 3
Not now, thanks
D3 resident here.
If this week’s poll is any indication, many people are against the additional 1% tax.
I think it is the wrong time to consider it. Residents will need to adjust to new PAYT expenses in their budgets, and local organizations and businesses are adapting to the VY closure. Add in the rising cost of just about everything, tax increases, parking fees, and the fact that we’ll be doing sidewalk repairs this summer and negatively impacting businesses with the construction… let’s not go too far all at once. Until the Brooks House, for example, is fully occupied on the first floor, we should be looking at giving benefits and breaks to local business, not saddling them with an additional burden.
The flip side of wanting more revenue is learning to live within limits. I’d love hundreds of thousands of new dollars sent my way, but the more realistic long term approach is to spend within my limits. RTM should apply pressure and keep spending down so additional revenue isn’t demanded.
push polling
I generally find your polls fun and interesting. This one is a textbook case of a push poll. The local option tax is a complex issue. This ‘poll’ will shed no light on our shared financial realities.
Go ahead and write an editorial, but calling an editorial a poll accomplishes nothing if you want to learn about an issue. I meet people regularly who support a local option tax. There is no way to express this in your ‘poll’.
I hear people on this site say they oppose the 1% local tax because it will hurt business in Brattleboro. In the next breath they say they don’t shop in Brattleboro anymore. Decide whether or not you want to support Brattleboro.
Brattleboro is no longer supported by large business taxes from the grand list. We are largely a center for services, arts, education, tourism. It is questionable trying to fund the town largely on residential taxpayers (and renters). Finding new sources of income is a no brainer if you want to relive the upward pressure on property taxes.
If you really think that Brattleboro’s budget is excessive, then try to make that case.
Andy
Previous local option taxes passed; property taxes are not lower
Push poll: “an ostensible opinion poll in which the true objective is to sway voters using loaded or manipulative questions.”
Our poll has answers of all varieties, from full support to full opposition, and the ability to write in your own option. You can argue about being representational, but loaded and manipulative – I would disagree. I’d like to take the pulse of the community and see if this is going to pass. I’d say it isn’t.
The reason people on tight budgets worry about adding a new tax is that yes, it is already expensive to shop downtown, or anywhere. Personal budgets have been cut. This would make it even harder to shop here. Wanting to support Brattleboro businesses is not the same as being in a financial position that allows it to happen, necessarily.
I hear you. You want to vote for a 1% tax. Pass it. Then we’ll talk about cutting the budget in the next year or so.
The previous local option taxes have not lowered your property taxes, have they? Why would this one?
with all due respect
With all due respect, it appears to me that your current poll was written by an opponent of the local option tax. That is fine. You are opposed to the local option tax and you posted the poll.
I think it is unlikely the local option tax will pass. Opponents – one of which I was in the past – are much more vocal and organized. So be it. I’m running for RTM from district 3. You can vote against me if you disagree with my change of heart!
I still think that many of the people who say that 1% will be the straw that breaks the proverbial back have already given up on main street. The problem for many is not the sales taxes on main street it is the prices themselves and the type of stores and restaurants.
I do not think that Brattleboro is a profligate spending town. We are a town – much like Bellows Falls – that has lost much of its industrial base over the years. We need to recast our view of how we fund necessary projects like the collapsing wall above the Harmony Lot, the municipal center repairs, the police station, the fire station, snow removal, street repairs and on and on. We cannot keep funding it with the residential property taxes that are paid by renters and owners.
Recently Joyce Marcel wrote an amazingly upbeat article on the role of the arts in our local economy. Brattleboro – and Windham County in general – is an attractive destination for people who are not effected by a local option in the least. The exemptions are many (groceries, clothing, medicine, etc). It is not wrong to tax people who visit our town and consume services here. Other Vermont communities do it and it is a benefit to them.
At the same time, local businesses would do well to cater more to the people who are on tight budgets. Rents downtown are apparently too high for low margin businesses. A Chelsea Royal type diner would be a big draw for downtown. Chelsea Royal used to be downtown – across from the library.
We face a conundrum. And you are welcome to include my response in your poll. Not sure where it fits in.
Andy
Or
I don’t think it’s a bad idea, and I’m one of the out-of-towners who would pay (and already does pay on some items) the tax to help support Brattleboro. But I voted “shouldn’t even be on the ballot again” because the question has already been settled. It is arrogant to keep throwing it at the town without a new plan for using the money. With no plan it will be absorbed into the general fund and end up disappearing like your “savings” from PAYT. Poof! Gone.
Tax stability (or at least predictability), and fiscal transparency are important. This way of constantly challenging the status quo with rejected ideas threatens both.
Much discussion
There has been quite a lot of discussion on ibrattleboro over the past several weeks regarding this issue. I believe you can look back on this site and find previous posts/comments about the proposed 1% tax.
Brattleboro residents are already dealing with high taxes;in 5 months PAYT will be in effect- bringing an additional expense and a financial burden to low income residents. The 1% tax has been voted down before yet the SelectBoard insists on dredging it up again and again.We are already being taxed to death here – this tax will do nothing but make it more difficult for businesses to attract customers and will be one more reason – along with poor parking and way too many empty store fronts- to shop elsewhere.