To the editor:
In response to Joan Theriault’s recent letter, I must agree with her. We are not a huge city with a vast population of people eager to serve the city government and the headaches which that choice can hold. Farmers and businesses have good and bad years. Private citizens might have good years with a mixture of many unexpected crises hovering in the background like possible job loss or a serious family illness, or both, and that could make them fall behind on their tax bill. This is life and it does not give us the right to make these people second class citizens.
When I approached the city to bid on tax-acquired property, the only acceptable places location-wise and barely decent structures for the pet rescue were unavailable to us because the owners were going to make a “good faith effort” to make steady real estate tax payments on the already tax-acquired property. Why wouldn’t we give the same grace to a decent, hard-working local farmer/businessman?
If we punish decent people for having a bad year economically and make them second class citizens, should we also refuse to allow renters to serve on the City Council? After all, it is the landlord, not the renter, who pays the city real estate taxes. Should anyone who is not paying real estate taxes be refused a right to serve on the Council? Possibly, but very foolish as it would eliminate many highly intelligent, hard working people who simply choose to rent rather than own property and the issues of maintenance of that property. If a farmer/businessman is making good faith efforts to pay his real estate taxes then he should be at least one step ahead of the apartment renter who pays no real estate taxes and the citizens who are making “good faith” efforts to pay off their already tax-acquired property.
Also the late taxpayer is paying interest on that late tax bill. So what is the problem?
Norma Milton
Caribou
