Nation Divided, and How our Elected Officials Divide Reading.

Nation Divided, and How our Elected Officials Divide Reading. Election Decisions.

We are all aware how our nation is divided. I make the observation that over the last several years a number of local issues have begun to divide this great community I have lived in, starting from 1973 to 1976 and then again since 1990 to today. I present two issues that intersect many other issues and embody many of the challenges we face as a community, together. The two issues I present were, in my observation, passed or proposed by our local elected officials in such a way as to divide our community which I will address below. The first is an example where fees were increased for one group of Reading residents, singling out a minority or even a large part of our citizens who must pay and since the rest of us who may not have to pay fall silent because, well, it’s the proverbial OPM - Other Peoples’ Money. This is a remarkably effective political trick to raise “taxes” without an outcry from all the citizens and it is a favorite way for elected officials to do so at every level of government. The observation is that because such a revenue raising strategy is quite easy it proliferates and divides more and more of the voters which in turn creates a greater and greater political divide, the likes of which we see in our nation and local communities here and abroad. The second example is one used in Reading over many years, threatening to cut services for the majority to justify increased expenditures for a needy and emotional minority need. I would also observe we are all in this together and whether we receive the benefits of budget spending because we work here or our seniors or children benefit from this spending or we pay taxes and fees we must solve these difficult and challenging problems together, each making sacrifices and contributions equally and fairly. Over the years I have sought to learn about the balancing of these challenges by speaking to members of our Select Board, School Committee and Finance Committee at length and while I do not represent I know every issue in detail I do know that we all get wrapped up in the way things are done and the momentum that this is how we solved it in the past.

So in order to help make my decision to whom I will cast my vote I request the candidates for the Select Board and School Committee indicate how they will vote for the questions posed below. No long explanation, just a simple yes of no.

The first example that intersects with other challenges is the increase in parking fees two years ago. It is important to note the fee increase was done before the last Proposition 2 ½ Override vote and was in part justified by the need to raise revenue not knowing if the Override might pass. The existing parking fees were $25 for the first car and $10 for each subsequent vehicle in the household. Fees were increased to $150 per car, no discount for additional vehicles. For residents with 2 – 3 cars this represents from $150 to $450 per family or more. To make the math simple, for a $10,000 annual property tax bill, this is a 1.5% to 4.5% or more increase in taxes, an interesting way to pass a Proposition 2.5 override imposed on those people who must commute to work by train. Paying this fee entitles the payer to qualify as a resident of Reading for purposes of parking in certain designated parking spaces in the Town. The justification for the increase I am told was based on a careful analysis by the Town Manager that showed the expenses of plowing, etc. of these spaces justified the cost. I request the Town Manager and Select Board review the minutes of the meetings that originally proposed the parking fees and I would expect to find that the reason for the fees was to distinguish between cars parked at the train station by town residents and commuters from other towns. A low cost de minimis fee was instituted that was not necessarily related to the cost. Why impose a fee based on cost only on those residents who must commute to work based on a cost analysis while not imposing a like cost when I park in front of my house or anywhere else in Town?

Why don’t those citizens who do not have to commute by train have to pay the same tax? This is highly divisive and extraordinarily regressive for people who may not be able to afford the luxury of driving to work and paying the parking fees in downtown Boston. For young families who are trying to afford housing in Reading or those with family members living at home to save for a house this is high percentage increase in their taxes. It would be useful for the Town Manager to disclose the number of parking passes bought by “residents” before and after the fee increase. Personally I ride my bicycle from Reading to Boston two days a week when the daylight and weather permits, driving in the other three days because I leave before the first train is able to get me in to start my day on time. During winter I try to lower my carbon footprint by commuting by train or park my bicycle at the train station. For the limited times I do want to park at the station the cost per day imposed by the parking taxes is out of line and I am sure there are many people like me who do not park each day and must take different cars when we do. But equating this cost to parking is not the issue. Personally I gladly pay my property taxes to support the Town and I believe good town services and schools help raise property values more than the tax. Further, I gladly provide outsized contributions to scholarships, school activities, the Library and many other causes. So for me this is not an issue of affordability or willingness to do my part. Indeed, it is rather insulting that if I do not pay a parking tax I am considered a non-resident and will be penalized and fined for not doing so. I am also concerned the parking fee itself has questionable legal status or justification. In another community where I also pay taxes and provide support for community activities, the town officials proposed increased mooring fees to those residents who keep their boats on town moorings maintained by the town’s harbormaster. A local attorney in that town raised legal questions about the imposition of fees on one group of citizens and not others justified by the cost of maintaining the moorings. The town reversed the mooring charge proposal. Whether one is mooring their boat or parking a land yacht it might be worth exploring the legality of such taxes/fees. The real issue here is not whether we can find a cost analysis or legal basis for such revenue strategies but fairness of dividing our residents. I could also point to many other fees the Town has imposed, whether for sports, other outside curricula activities and so on.

The last observation on the parking issue is that we don’t have a parking problem we have a zoning problem and this is how the issue intersects with so many other challenges. When the Town permits greater and greater density it is automatic that we create parking and other problems. A perfect example of this is that the Select Board was to vote on March 26 on yet additional restrictions and other parking matters on this subject. Broadening the tax base through increased density has great appeal. There is an enormous amount of capital that will take on any and all projects that municipal governments will permit. Examples of towns that followed this path include Cambridge, Boston, Somerville, etc. If you like density, traffic congestion, and untenable parking issues then you probably love those communities. The last salvo in this quest for revenues is a congestion tax. I commute through all those cities by car and bicycle and I hope our Town leaders are not heading for such a tax-base-broadening urban planning strategy. In short, there is no urban or town planning in such a strategy. After the capital is spent and long rewarded the residents are left behind to deal with the divisions among us and the quality of life issues. Please do not read this as anti-development, rather consider this a challenge to address the balance between the insatiable quest for revenue growth to fund any and all spending desires for well-intentioned needs.

So my question to the candidates is this. Keep in mind parking fees are divisive to our Town and imposed prior to the 2 ½ Override passed. If you are an existing Select Board member did you vote for the parking fee increase? Yes ___ or No ___. If you are an existing Board member or you are a candidate for the Board will you commit to reverse the increased parking fees/tax? Yes ___ or No ___.

The second issue addresses challenges we face (primarily) in our school budget, the problem being that certain expenses, whether they be health and other benefits, salaries, administrative expense growth, special education, and so on have grown much faster than inflation but more importantly have grown much faster than Proposition 2 ½ mandates. My analysis shows that over many years Reading’s tax growth has exceeded 2 ½%, primarily due to the broadening of the tax base through real estate and commercial development. It appears the budget balancing challenge is not that our revenues have not grown faster than inflation or faster than the Proposition 2 ½ mandate but that our expenses have grown even faster. I hope to write more about this at a later time. The observation I would like to make is again one of divisiveness. In the last Override campaign I observed the School Committee pit one group of citizens against another in the same way I have seen many times in the past. In this instance the proposal as I saw it was to fire 6 or 7 regular classroom teachers and hire special education teachers and, if I recall correctly, also propose to hire administrators of the special education program. Whether intentional or not the message was clear to the residents, if you pass the Override will hire back the regular classroom teachers (language, etc.) but if you don’t pass the Override the quality of your children’s’ education for most students will decline drastically. Since I have lived in Reading since the 1970s in the post-2 ½ revenue world this strategy by the School Committee of pitting one group of parents against another and threatening lower quality of education is too repetitive and predictable. More concerning is the divisiveness it creates. As stated above this is not about any willingness or ability to support good schools or community it is about the need for our elected leaders to look at the problem in a different way. Are we mandated to pay higher costs for medical, special education, and the people to administer them? The answer is always yes. Is there a way to do so but in a more cost effective way? Should we be pushing back on federal and state mandates? Do we need to set limits on how much such programs are allowed to drain resources from other important projects? If we should consider doing so how can we develop creative ideas to achieve these key performance indicators? Do we need to strike a better compromise between the needs and the resources? It should not be about dividing our residents. I have not had a child in Killam School in many years but I will soon have grandchildren and other relatives in the school system. So pardon my lack of knowledge on the details. I was surprised to hear that students at Killam are not allowed to drink from the school’s water systems on account of lead in the pipes either in the school or lines feeding the school. What does this teach our children about how well our elected leaders and parents are prioritizing their financial affairs. Our parents’ generation worked extremely hard, making large sacrifices to build to raise much larger families than my generation has. They built and paid for, largely without running massive deficits, the economic infrastructure, including schools, to educate us all. This has provided most of us a better life than they had. They entrusted us to maintain and improve what they built for us. But if our own children and grandchildren cannot even drink the water at their school then shame on my generation’s financial management and the trade-offs we have been making.

Government tax revenues at the federal, state and local level are being challenged like never before in the history of our country. In the U. S., wages in real terms (after inflation) have not grown in 40 years so income taxes based on flat real wages cannot be expected to increase. Yet spending has grown. Technological innovation has eroded the growth of the nation’s Gross National Product such that Real GDP growth has slowed to little more than 1-2% meaning the taxes on individual and corporate income are not growing as fast as government spending. To understand the causes of this think of how much you pay to develop the photos you take on your camera today compared to when you bought and developed film. Those expenditures are no longer in GDP. Beyond products, service income is also being challenged with the likes of car sharing services, outsourcing to low cost countries, and so on. How does this translate to Reading? If the state’s tax revenues are not increasing yet the state’s expenses are increasing faster than tax revenues the state must cut back on some of their expenditures. This is one reason local state aid for schools has not increased to compensate Reading and other cities and towns for mandated laws like special education or health insurance. There is debate at the state level about this very issue but I would make the observation that the problem is not likely to get better as technology permeates every industry in the global economy, making it more and more challenging for all levels of government to increase tax revenues in real (inflation adjusted) terms and hence difficult to balance budgets. Unfunded pension liabilities at the Federal and State level is another challenge that will soon be reckoned with resulting in less funds available to towns like Reading. So perhaps we should plan on lower real funding in our long-term planning and if so how can we deal with expense categories that attempt to grow faster than our state aid and local property taxes can accommodate? So my second question is for the candidates for School Committee. Will you commit to stop using divisive tactics to pit one group of residents against another and contain those expense categories which grow at rates faster than our projected increase in real, inflation adjusted tax growth? Yes ____ or No ____?

I have one bonus question for all the candidates for Select Board and School Committee. Kindly provide a list of the capital projects the Town should undertake with your highest priority at the top.

Thank you for spending your time and reading.

I recently read a comment from two women indicating there are not enough candidates to fill the Town Meeting vacancies. Their call to action was for more women to come forward and request their friends and neighbors to cast write-in ballots for whomever might like to serve. Their call to action motivated me to write this letter and I am also motivated to be considered to volunteer as a write-in candidate as well. I would also be interested as a Finance Committee member or even as a write-in candidate for School Committee or Select Board.

Bernard R. Horn, Jr.

Precinct 1.