Lessons from Lexington's December 4, 2017 debt exclusion vote

Last year before the debt exclusion, the YES campaign raised $15,192, 41% of it from school PTAs, and the vote was NO 39% and YES 61%.

Before this debt exclusion, the YES campaign raised $20,325, 49% of it from school PTAs, and the vote is NO 40% and YES 60% (above in dark blue; medium blue are the 3 individual questions; light blue is last year's result).

If our Town leaders do some long-range planning — they don't for our operating and capital budgets —, they can extrapolate to see where this is going...

Gambling that a small minority of voters (28% yesterday) will continue to be willing to raise our local taxes (by +3% yesterday), especially once local taxes are no longer deductible on our Federal tax returns courtesy of our GOP-controlled Congress, is not a wise way to run a quality school system and municipal services for the long-term.

Also, 0% of our Selectmen, 0% of our School Committee, 0% of our Appropriation and Capital Expenditures Committees, 3% of Town Meeting and 40% of Lexingtonians opposed this debt exclusion — quite a disconnect between Town government and those it's supposed to represent.

Why our Town leaders so stubbornly refuse to implement immediate money-saving initiatives, and to look into initiatives that request more detailed study, is a mystery. They prefer to gamble that school PTAs will continue to provide year after year enough willing voters needed to raise taxes, and half the funds needed to run each $20,000 debt exclusion or operating override campaign.