To the editor:
In your November 27 editorial (“Food for thought”) in part you wrote: “We at the Current support the basic premise that keeping annual limits on the increase of real estate taxes is good for Marblehead taxpayers, but we also wonder if the time has come for our legislators to consider possible modifications of such limits to reflect the reality that certain fixed costs of the town’s annual budget — over which we have little or no control — are increasing at such a rate as to make it impossible to provide annual pay increases to our valued employees that will at least keep up with the increases in the cost of living.”
This was followed on December 3 with a letter to the editor by Matthew Hooks who posited: “It is virtually impossible to provide consistent levels of service in an inflationary environment while working within the constraints of Prop 2 ½.”
As the final executive director of Citizens for Limited Taxation (and former homeowner of 145 Village St., next-door to my partner Barbara Anderson for over two decades), I think it’s important to recognize that CLT’s Proposition 2½ was drafted, the signatures collected and the following year appeared on the ballot in 1980, where it was adopted overwhelmingly by voters statewide.
You may recall that also on that very same 1980 ballot Ronald Reagan defeated Jimmy Carter for the U.S. presidency after an even worse run of inflation than what the Biden administration has put us through. Voters who overwhelmingly supported passage and adoption of our property tax limitation law were well aware of the effect of rising costs then, as they are now.
Over ensuing decades, Prop 2½ has come under a plethora of stealthy attacks to weaken it by relentless Beacon Hill legislators, but with steady public support we managed to fend them off and protect our law time after time (see cltg.org/#proposition).
CLT intentionally provided for overrides in its law, though expected them to be utilized only in rare cases of unexpected, unbudgeted emergencies, and even then — and most importantly — only with the approval of a majority of affected voters.
Overrides remain available. All that’s required to achieve one is to convince a majority of local voters that raising their own property taxes (and those of their neighbors) is necessary, sound and desirable. If most voters disagree, they defeat it. That has always been the intent of CLT’s Proposition 2½ and, like it or not, democracy still works.
Chip Ford
Former executive director (retired), Citizens for Limited Taxation
Village Street
