Diversify The Tax Base

To the Editor:

Over the past few months I have been listening and reading about the town budget. I understand we are trying to pay for a first class school system, good roads, an outstanding library, new police cars, and more open space. At the same time there seems to be concern that the tax burden on the average homeowner is becoming onerous and there is a need to cut back on development (homes, retirement communities, businesses, etc) in our town.

I’m pretty new to this town having moved here in December — yes, I’m one of those evil people that from the outside saw a nice town with a good school system and thought it would be a great place to raise my children. I do believe everyone on all sides of the debate has their hearts in the right place, they are all trying to maintain and create a town which can continue to make all of us proud.

Again, I’m new to town and admit that I do not know all of the issues. But, the problem seems to be pretty simple. The problem seems to be not enough revenue to meet our expenses. We do not want to increase the budget even though the cost of our schools will continue to increase even if we never see another additional student enroll; health care costs, maintenance of the buildings and facilities, periodic technology upgrades, etc, all increase every year. Our police department periodically needs new cars and their cost never goes down. We live in New England and the roads will always be in constant need of repair. This all means the budget must increase in order for us to just maintain status quo which in turn means our taxes must go up every year. The only way to limit the impact of these tax increases on the average homeowner is to diversify our tax base. I have seen and heard nothing about what we are doing to attract more businesses to our town. I have seen and heard about how we are trying to prevent businesses from entering our town and how we are trying to keep retirement communities from building here as well. I am certainly not advocating another Federal Road-type environment in Newtown, but rather a well-thought-out development plan, which could attract a handful of businesses to our town. I also do not see the great harm in a well-thought-out plan for more retirement communities filled with taxpayers who do not have children. I read about how these would cause a great burden on town services, and I have one question that I have never seen answered: other than roads, what town services do these types of development impact?

I have also read about the amount of money that is being set aside to purchase additional open space. I too feel it is important to preserve our open spaces and wish we could funnel money to these projects, but I personally cannot prioritize open space above our children’s education, our safety, or our roads. I am uncomfortable putting trees above children.

Again, to me this all boils down to coming up with a basic plan that will attract the right amount of development without sacrificing our goals for Newtown. We should be able to create some significant incentives for businesses to locate in our town and yes, we will have to live with the burden of additional traffic in some parts of town. Our town has set aside a reasonable amount of property for development, but without incentives this property will never be developed properly. Until, such a plan is implemented and an additional tax base is created we should focus our limited funds properly, education, and safety first everything else next.

Carl Coken

4 Cobblers Mill Road, Sandy Hook                               April 12, 2004