Alphecca

Buh-Bye Killington...

...But it's gonna' cost you.

Killington is a ski-resort town of about a thousand in Vermont. Most of the residents live there only part-time. Most are remarkably wealthy. The condominiums (most of them vacation homes) surrounding the ski areas start at about $375,000 dollars in price. Those are the slums! Killington residents feel they pay too much in property taxes to the state. Boo-hoo. Who doesn't? So the millionaires of Killington want to secede from the state of Vermont and join New Hampshire, 50 miles to the east. Last week at Town Meeting they voted to do so. From CNN:

Town officials said about two-thirds of the 200 to 300 people who attended the town meeting supported secession.

The main source of discontent is Vermont's new system of financing education, adopted in 1997 on orders from the state Supreme Court. It dramatically increased property taxes in wealthy communities like Killington.

Secession activists say Killington's restaurants, inns and other businesses send $20 million a year to Montpelier in sales, room and meal taxes, while the state returns just $1 million in municipal and education aid to the town of roughly 1,000 residents.

Introduced by Reps. Mark Young, R-Orwell, Richard Marron, R-Stowe, and Kathleen Keenan, D-St. Albans City, House Bill 426 lays out the potential consequences of secession, including a provision that would charge towns exit fees for leaving the state.

Young, the principal author, said he proposed the bill — which would "sever all connections with, and support for, a municipality which secedes from the state" — to remind Killington residents of the consequences of their continued quest to become part of New Hampshire.

"It started out as a good gag or joke or comment or something, but it's gone too far," he said. "People need to realize the realities of what's being discussed and the huge, huge, huge implications that make the whole process absurd."
[...]
Young said Vermont would also expect to recoup its investments in Killington's infrastructure.

So in the bill Young calls for the secretary of administration to hold two public hearings to establish "exit fees for stranded assets of the state, including those relating to education, transportation, and public service" if any community secedes from the state.

Another provision of the bill would terminate any contracts and leases between the state and any seceding town, or any businesses in a seceding town. This could have an enormous effect on the Killington Resort, which leases land from the state for its ski trails.
[...]
The bill would also cut all state funds to any seceding town and revoke the Vermont citizenship of its residents. But that's only the tip of the iceberg of what would have to be considered, Young said.

"There's a long list of things that I didn't even put in the bill, like what would happen to residents with outstanding Vermont Student Assistance Corp. loans or students going to the University of Vermont and the state colleges who are paying in-state tuition," he said. "What would happen with utilities and phone service? The list goes on and on and on and on."

And here's what I think. I agree completely with the bill. You know, everyone everywhere thinks their taxes are too high. I don't know anyone who breaks-out in a tap-dance when receiving their bills. I could sympathize with someone living in a state -- let's use N.J. as an example -- with 9 million residents (in otherwords, a large tax-base) griping about their tax bills. But when you live in a small state with a total population of only 600,000 people well, someone has to pay the bills.

These Killington royalty come from states with a lot of efficient services. They expect and demand the same from Vermont. People still want their roads plowed. They still want police protection (almost half of Vermont towns don't have any police; they rely on the State Police to protect and patrol). They want their roads maintained. To use a cliche, they want the trains to run on time. They expect the same infrastructure and programs they've always had. Well, that stuff costs money.

Further, the state education sharing pool evens out inequities in school districts from one municipality to another and since the state constitution requires this, wealthier towns help subsidize the poorer ones. Yes, that's socialistic but it's the only way to insure that all kids in the state have access to a good education and a chance for the future.

Lastly, while New Hampshire doesn't have a sales tax, they certainly do have high property taxes as well as rooms and meals taxes on par with Vermont.

If Killington wants to secede, fine. Buh-bye. But the State of Vermont is well within the right to recoup any investment it has, including cancelling the lease of it's mountainsides. If we were talking about a poor farming community I might feel differently. Killington is a town of outside wealth. Fuck them. Pay your taxes and be thankful for what you have (that most people in this country don't) as well as the view.