A whole new perspective

Through a chain of events that I won ' t bore you by reciting, I find myself the Democratic candidate for First Selectman of the very small town I live in. (I expect that ' s surprising. It is to me.) This suddenly makes me think about problems I really hadn ' t considered much before.Our town ' s main industry is agriculture. We don ' t really have a main street. There ' s a liquor store, an auto repair business, an acupuncturist, a seamstress (really) and a chain saw shop. We have a sawmill and a campground. That ' s about it. Our problem is that agricultural land pays very little in real estate taxes, which means that almost the entire burden of financing the town falls on residential property. We also have a small population which means there are only about 100 kids in our elementary school (pre-K through 6) and maybe 48 of our own kids in a regional 7 through 12 school, for which we pay by the head. Because the schools are so small, they are very expensive. You still have to pay a principal and a janitor, and maintenance on the, spread out over few pupils, with small class sizes. We could send our kids to a classy private school for the same money.Oh yeah, this is not a wealthy town. The median household income is toward the bottom of Connecticut towns. But the property taxes are near the top, because based on what you see in the previous paragraph, they have to be. Many people whose families have lived here for generations can ' t really afford to live here any more. Th...
Source: Stayin' Alive - Category: American Health Source Type: blogs