Letter to the editor,
A group of citizens who are concerned about higher taxes because of a lack of town planning are now being called by the Mayor, Town Council, and the local newspaper the anti-fire hall group. This is the art of the spin.
The spin is when an issue is deliberately and deftly deflected to place the focus anywhere but on the real issue.
In this case, the opposition is being villainized by the Town as people who care more about a few pennies a day than the town firefighters or the town’s future. I’m sure the Town would have you believe we don’t like puppies or our mothers, either.
The real issue becomes buried in this nonsense. And the real issue is the Town’s overspending and lack of planning. Nearly lost in the mountains of information the Town is now producing, is the fact they have known for ten years that the Fire Hall was a problem. (Who doesn’t care about the firefighters??) If they had started planning then, and putting away money then, a new Fire hall would be all but paid for today.
The Town of Creston has finally released estimates of what a new Fire Hall will cost taxpayers. They are being very careful to quote ONLY the 2017 increase in taxes. They are saying it is estimated (let’s not pin them down to a real figure before the referendum) it will cost the average taxpayer in Creston less than the equivalent of a cup of coffee a day.
This is also spin. The average taxpayer in Creston (assuming a $265,000 home value and a 1.50 cup of coffee) is already contributing the equivalent of five cups of coffee per day to the town coffers! Some of our beleaguered Hawkview residents are putting over a dozen cups of coffee a day into the town coffee pot.
5.3 million dollars is still 5.3 million dollars (though sometimes its 6.1 million dollars.) It’s like being told you have to eat an elephant, but it’s okay because it’s only one tiny slice at a time, so you’ll hardly notice.
The Town is being asked, by the Committee for an Affordable Fire Hall to come up with an affordable option for a new Fire Hall and to postpone their referendum until they do that. That’s it.
Instead of addressing these concerns and accepting responsibility for the fact the ball has been dropped, the Town has forged ahead, spending money, conducting geo-tech tests on land the town doesn’t own yet, hiring architects for a project the taxpayer has not approved, and blitzing the media.
Mayor Toyota said yesterday he will donate $1,000 of his own money toward the new Fire Hall and has challenged all his fellow concerned citizens to do the same.
What a great photo op for Mayor Toyota, hero of the firefighters! That is the art of the spin practiced by a true master.
Collette Caron