To the editor:

First, I would like to express my appreciation to our town's Budget Committee for a job well done.  Thanks to 1,220 voters who did nothing more than vote with their wallets, the Katz petition won again this year.  The big difference in circumstances came in the fact that this year's winning budget had no line items in it but $958,000 had to be removed from the Budget Committee's recommended budget to comply with the Katz petition.

So, the Budget Committee, despite over four months of weekly meetings, again had to convene to find a way to make this happen.  When the dust cleared, they not only made the cuts but did it without taking money from the town's General Fund.

Yes, trash collection was reduced by $500,000 - in my opinion, this absolutely had to be one of the cuts.  When attempting to reduce a $19,000,000 budget (municipal only) by $958,000, while over 86% of the $19,000,000 is contractually committed or debt service (bonds), it does not leave many places to cut such a huge amount.

Much misinformation about the $4 - $6 cost for trash bags has been circulating around town.  This is simply not true. During the Budget Committee's discussions on trash service, Ms. Saurette (Tteasurer) stated that another community pays $1.75 for small bags and $2 for large bags but supplements that by charging residents $141 a year for stickers that must be purchased in order to receive curbside pick up. 

Wake up folks, this is the new reality.  You can not run a community on flat budgets year after year and continue depleting our General Fund reserves as well without having to pay a price.  The price this year is no more free trash pick up.  To those who supported Mr. Katz's budget - I hope it was worth it to you.

To all Tiverton's voters, consider this.  If we lost free trash pick up with a 0.9% budget increase, think of what might be lost next year with a 0% or even a negative budget put forth by Mr. Katz or one of his cohorts.

In closing, I sincerely hope the town is working on a charter change or amendment to the charter for this November so that at the very least it would be much more difficult for this to happen again.  My two cents worth would be to increase the signature requirement substantially for a petitioner's budget to be put on the ballot and/or to limit the difference allowed between the town's recommended budget and any petitioner's budget to be on the ballot for the FTR.

 We need to keep in mind that cutting trash pick up and the other cuts as well are not the fault of either our Town Council or Budget Committee, it is the direct result of 1,220 voters supporting a very destructive budget without regard of the real cost.

Jim O'Dell

Tiverton