To the editor:

May 2018 will mark the 10th anniversary of Tiverton’s “Stolen FTM,” when taxpayers who voted against exceeding the tax cap were told to come back to the gym to vote for a new plan ”in several weeks," only to have the school department use the emergency phone system to call voting parents back to overturn the vote one week later, resulting in an 11% tax increase!

Although Louise Durfee’s role in orchestrating that re-vote is clear in video, in 2014 the Tiverton 1st-controlled Town Council appointed Durfee to the Budget Committee. Now Durfee has led the effort to charge you a fee for trash pickup, despite numerous more-taxpayer-friendly ways to reduce spending.

Punishing taxpayers for the FTR vote extends to incumbent Councilor Dave Perry who in June distributed a printed business card reading “Katz Cuts: Don’t like the Budget Cuts? Contact: …” and listed FTR petitioner Justin Katz’s work email and personal cell phone number.

That this political retribution occurred before the Budget Committee had cast a single vote to adjust the budget to the FTR results is evidence of a coordinated plan of revenge against taxpayers.

By the end of its first meeting after the FTR, the committee had made 84% of the necessary reductions without touching trash. Then, instead of finding the last 16% in the second meeting, Durfee and the majority reduced the trash account by $500,000, and went on a “spending spree”, reversing most of the sensible reductions made the previous week.

In a letter to this newspaper, Budget Committee member Cecil Leonard defended his committee’s decision to target trash pickup. Leonard complains that there were “a mere” 2,199 FTR voters, but as few as 301 used to participate in the FTM days, and only 1,292 votes approved the $30 million in school bonds. As for trash-killer Louise Durfee, she received zero votes for her current position because she was appointed by the Town Council, which is controlled by the very same Tiverton 1st seeking revenge.

Leonard claims it would be difficult to find savings in contract renegotiation. Well, the town is in the middle of a contract with Patriot Disposal, so if the Council alters that, then taxpayers never want to hear the “we have to pay the contract” excuse again. Never.

Speaking of contracts, at the same June 27 meeting at which the Council indicated its plans to go along with Durfee’s trash plan, members approved two 2% raises for department directors. Raises seem to be going around in Tiverton; the Budget Committee gave a 2.5% raise to Town Treasurer Denise Saurette, even though the Council hadn’t proposed one. It’s interesting to note that treasurer met secretly with Durfee between the two Budget Committee meetings and did the research for new trash fees. Your trash pickup dollars at work.

As of this writing, there’s still hope because Councilor Joan Chabot kept the possibility on the table to pay for trash pickup by transferring monies from other accounts. But although the Town Council has been transferring funds around for decades, Council President Denise deMedeiros insisted that could only be a temporary measure because “the Budget Committee set the budget.” Seriously? One of taxpayers’ biggest complaints this year was that the Council didn’t follow the petition that won in 2015.

It is long overdue to remove Councilor Dave Perry and Council President Denise deMedeiros from office in November, and to not elect candidates who support killing trash or neutering the FTR. The alternative is to give away the keys to those who want to bring back the double digit tax increases that the FTR now prevents.

Jeff Caron

Tiverton