Tiverton is under attack yet again. The fabric of our community and the future financial health of it are dependent on your vote for Budget 1.

The petitioner Justin Katz and his Tiverton Taxpayers' Association (TTA) have been creating a financial crisis in this town for the past 5+ years. They have used their broken-record tactic of “control your taxes” to do this, and let’s face reality, who doesn’t want lower taxes?

Given the option of an alternate budget, most people will readily admit they know nothing about what makes local government work but will blindly vote to directly hurt the very town they claim to love.

I would again ask all of you to understand this: Justin Katz and his TTA have “controlled” the finances of this Town every budget for the past 5 years. Why is it that according to them we still have such horrific taxes?
Because it’s smoke and mirrors folks. It’s that simple. It’s their philosophy, not a reality. This is not one person’s town, one group's town, one party's town. This is all of our Town.

We have a real opportunity to apply gaming revenue to debt service payments and to eliminate the financed vehicles that we pay interest on. We have a real opportunity to properly reduce our levy and lower our taxes for now and the long haul. We have a real opportunity to make Tiverton a better community and stop this constant attack on our Town.

We have the opportunity to finally apply proper funding to our roads and infrastructure. You elected your Town Council to do the town’s work. Let them do it for all of us, not one small group. Vote smart, vote Budget #1.

David J Paull
Budget Committee Member, Tiverton