Thank you, friends/Tiverton residents who elected me. This is a note to you, to let you know in my first and second years on the budget committee I learned a lot and we worked well together. I also found that many town officials and others want to continue to spend, spend, spend.

When you and I have to keep budgets low in our households, maybe giving up vacations, or not putting on siding or a new roof that we need … it’s not right.

What is a town created for? It’s to join together and consider all residents’ basic, shared needs. This is not a for-profit business!

In the decade before the FTR (Financial Town Referendum/vote), town officials raised taxes so fast (just like a business jacking up prices) that now we are paying what normally would have been the taxes in 2044, with 1990 “bad economy” salaries. 

Taxes were raised with huge increases, instead of gradual growth with something to show for it. This is not smart, as people haven’t been moving here due to tax spikes, thinking it will happen again. It is morally wrong to force people who are approaching an elderly age, to move out of the town where their families have lived for generations; that is not the American Dream.

Thank goodness for the FTR where any citizen, you or I, can put in a petition with a budget lower than all the big spenders want. You won FTR votes for the best budget when it counted. You won the vote last July – all reasonable non-spenders were voted onto the CRC (Charter Review) so the FTR will not be taken away. Even so, some are trying to use the town council to make it harder for you to reduce budgets. And they are trying to use the casino money for spending, not mainly tax relief. 

Even though I am on the budget committee, I support townsperson Petitioner Budget #2, which has a tax levy of minus 2.9%. This is a decrease from last year and lower than the budget committee budget (minus 0.47%).

The most important thing is for Tiverton to be a nice place to live again, where people greet everyone (not just the people who want their budget) and don’t fight about money all the time.

Ruth Hollenbach

Tiverton