This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Health & Fitness

Upset Over School Taxes? Here's An Idea

My blog today won’t float the boats of the Bedford “gimmes” who demand that everything that they want for their kids in the Bedford school system should be immediately supplied without reservation and especially without complaint. But since I don’t intend to pay for the fuel for their boats too, they can get as mad as they may choose. And it probably won’t float the boats of those paid by the school system either, but all jobs have annoyances, so I guess pushback from any residents will just have to serve as their employment displeasure.

I fully expect that I’ll again be described as a kid hater, or as a selfish taxpayer, or as someone who has it in for public schools, or as one too old and either too cheap or too poor to live in Bedford. Yadda, yadda, yadda. I can withstand the snark.

Between writing blogs and doing the “Tell It Like It Is” shows, I get a lot of telephone calls and especially a lot of emails from people of all ages and of every economic status in town (a staggering amount of emails in fact), and I can state without hesitation this to you - - - more and more people in Bedford have begun to rebel against what many regard as their forced overpayments to the Bedford school system. By “forced”, I of course refer to their tax bills.

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Now while “the gimmes” profess sympathy for those whom they label as “older” and/or “no longer working” residents in town whom they believe to be the only people who are complaining about the school side of the tax bill, many have shown their true callous disregard by suggesting that it’s time for such useless people to move out of town. If you attended or watched last week’s Town Council meeting that included a public hearing on the proposed Town budget (available for viewing on the BCTV website at www.bedfordtv.com), you’ll hear one of the most shrill of  “the gimmes” even say that such people should have planned better for their retirements! Insulting, demeaning, and arrogant seem to be inadequate words to describe her venom.

So . . . since “the gimmes” will inevitably continue to expect that their entitled demands be satisfied, and since future school deliberative sessions will inevitably be packed with folks wearing the designated color red who will loudly outvote any call for spending cuts, it becomes clear that something else is needed if we are to ever see a more proportionate use of our tax dollars. By this I mean uses that will benefit everyone in town, not just those who unabashedly admit that they are here only to provide their very precious offspring with our free “superior” school system, i.e., a school system where the wants of children must not be denied.

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Every city or town has what can be called a COO or Chief Operating Officer. In some places, this person is the Mayor. In our little Bedford bubble, the town’s COO is the Town Manager. In many, many places, the COO is the Chairman of the School Board, and has full voting power. Because the COO must take into account all of the needs of the community, not just those of unilateral public school supporters, the COO recognizes that the portion of the tax bill that goes to the schools can dramatically affect all of the other services and benefits in the community.

I truly believe that it is time for our Town Council to now bring about a change by which the Bedford Town Manager will have a voting seat on the School Board and will serve as Chair. They need to explore if such can be done through a change in or amendment to the Town Charter (with public hearings held on the measure), or if they need to seek an action by the state’s Legislature to permit such.

An attempt to gain this through a ballot initiative could doom the effort to failure since an election outcome can be determined by something as simple as whether it snows on election day.

And if such were subject to a school deliberative session, we already know that red-shirted residents and their supporters from ‘round the world will work tirelessly to pack the high school theater, the high school gymnasium, the high school cafeteria, and even the high school parking lots. Toddlers in strollers will be taught beforehand how to clap, cheer, and whistle. The high school population will again be offered credits toward graduation for their involvement in the spectacle. And if the town’s dead could be raised from their graves, they’d be there too.

It’s time for a School Board seat to be mandatorily occupied by one whose every word and whose every vote will take into account the whole town and everyone who lives in it, not just represent the people whose primary interests center around bragging about and expanding our school system.

The “gimmes” call the rest of us the haters. In reality, their total disregard for anything but their own desires being fulfilled to the detriment of the whole town makes them the haters. That’s my opinion. And I don’t care if they like it. Do you???

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