Wednesday, March 18, 2009

West Lebanon Coffee Hour - Mt. Lebanon School

Coffee and Conversation is coming to West Lebanon. Please bring your questions, ideas, comments and concerns.

Date will be announced shortly. Location: Mt. Lebanon School.

More to come...

Friday, March 13, 2009

Coffee & Conversation: April 2nd, 10:00AM at Salt Hill

Please join me for coffee and conversation at Salt hill on Thursday, April 2nd from 10:00am to 11:am.

This is an opportunity for me to listen to you - your concerns, questions, ideas, etc. There is no presentation planned. This is really an opportunity to hear from our residents and business community in an informal setting.

Please plan to attend! Our first session was a success!

Governor's Proposed Budget - Call your local legislators

The Governor's proposed budget does not fund Revenue Sharing and Meals & Rooms Tax for municipalities.

What does this mean for the City? A loss of around $1,022,000 in revenue.

What does this mean for residents? A potential tax rate increase of .60/per $1,000 of assessed value. This is over a 7% increase as compared to our 2009 tax rate or about $150 additional on the tax bill for a home assessed at $250,000.

Additionally, the Governor's proposed budget does not fund the state's 2.5% share of the state and local match for federally funded airport projects. The city has the potential to receive around $40 million in federal funds over the next five years. The loss of the state's portion jeopardizes this funding and the associated benefits (construction projects, etc.).

Please contact your local legislators and ask them to restore the following revenues:
1. Revenue Sharing,
2. Meals & Rooms Tax,
3. State's 2.5% Match for Airport Projects.

Please encourage our legislators to creatively use federal stimulus funds to shore up the state's budget instead of handing off state budget problems to municipalities and school districts. Let's tackle one budget versus over 400!

The following link takes you to the states website and legislator contact information:
http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/ns/whosmyleg/default.asp