Keep Framingham Affordable
Working to Keep Your | 
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Every tax is a pay cut. |
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| Thoughts on override plan | Tuesday, December 7, 2004 |
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| Steve Orr | Metrowest Daily News |
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I'd like to respond to Mr. Wolfe's campaign to block the upcoming proposal
for a possible $90M debt exclusion.
Since the proposal was first whispered, there has so far been literally zero public discussion. Maybe that is part of the strategy, but my sense is that there really isn't very much to talk about yet. But what we do know to be part of the proposal should not be blindly written off. Let me present some of the issues associated with just one point in the debt exclusion so you can see why. The proposal calls for $24M for street and sidewalk repair. If you have a leak in your house, you will be inclined to repair it quickly for two simple reasons. The first is that the cost of fixing that leak later is going to be much greater than if you deal with it now while it's smaller and the water damage is mitigated. The second is that you probably don't want to have the rain hitting you on the head. This example is analogous to the $24M proposed for street and sidewalk repair. It is less expensive over the the life of a street to keep it in a high state of repair than not. That is a simple fact. On the other hand there are (at least) three main issues that need to be dealt with to make me feel comfortable about proceeding. The first is that our water and sewer infrastructure is in as much or more need of attention than our street repairs, but water and sewer repairs are not paid for by the taxpayers; they are paid by the water and sewer rate payers. Without a bond offering from the water and sewer Enterprise Fund to at least match the money allocated for street repair, we are only asking to waste the street repair money. The second issue is that it makes no sense to fix streets (or water and sewer) if it can not be done on a regular maintenance schedule. Fixing the streets via a debt exclusion will only guarantee that our streets will be back in disrepair before the debt exclusion is paid off. And last, we have not yet begun to explore how the needed funds might be acquired from other sources, like state and federal. (We just got 90 percent of the $54M allocated for the new high school reimbursed). There are other issues relevant to street repairs, but this is enough to get the ball rolling. I strongly applaud Mr. Wolfe's efforts at being involved in the community and I hope to see more people getting involved also. But to take an early contrarian attitude can not be productive. We all need to listen to the proposal (if it ever happens) and then make decisions that make long-term sense based on the facts. That is the only way to responsibly balance and minimize the costs associated with protecting our valuable municipal assets. STEVEN W. ORR, Member of the Standing Committee for Public Works, Framingham |
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Send comments to:
hjw2001@rcn.com
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