We are faced with a request by our town to increase property taxes by 20 percent forever. Our town council wants this community to grow and improve and we appreciate the council’s efforts to bring these economic issues to the attention of our community.

Our town council chooses to spend our reserves and construct a new fire house. I appreciate the services of our excellent fire department and can understand the concern over response time for a critical emergency.

Yes, long-term capital needs should be budgeted for and completed within a proper planning timeline. It is time to pass bond issues necessary for planned capital projects. Bond interest is presently low. Further, the advantage of a bond issue is that the uses are predetermined and represent a specific cost to taxpayers, whereas a property tax can be spent on anything.

Our 2018 town budget spends most of the reserve and much of the operation budget on $11 million in capital outlay projects. Bonding will not draw down our reserves. As for roads, before we ask the taxpayers to increase their taxes by 20 percent, we must have an updated road study and estimated costs. The Council did not have those when they voted on the referendum proposal.

It may be time to operate our own fire and rescue service instead of spending monies on contracted services where costs will continue to rise without our ability to control them. We own equipment and facilities for our fire and rescue service. Our town must not continue to reduce services in all other departments and expect the same results. The use of contract services may solve an immediate need but someone else makes a profit and we pay the entire cost.

We need to thoughtfully plan for the future.