From Seacoast Online…
SOMERSWORTH — The tax cap petition was turned into to City Hall Tuesday.
On behalf of the New Hampshire Advantage Coalition, resident Tim Logsdon — a former Somersworth School Board member — began circulating the petition in May for a tax cap to be placed on the city ballot for a vote.
He said Monday he has gotten positive reactions from those he approached with the petition.
Recently others joined the effort, circulating petitions around the city that by Monday yielded 385 signatures. If the signatures and petition are found to be valid, an item would be placed on the November ballot for citywide vote during the 2008 presidential election. Residents would then be able to vote on a spending cap, the language of which was drafted by the coalition.
Approval of the cap would amend the charter with new language that dictates “the city manager and City Council shall be allowed to assume an estimated property tax rate in an amount not to exceed the tax rate established during the prior fiscal year increased by a factor equal to the change in the national Consumer Price Index – Urban.”
Capital expenditures and debt expenditures are included in the cap.
Any override of the rule would require a two-thirds vote of the City Council.
The same effort recently took place in Rochester through the Rochester Concerned Taxpayers Association — which netted more than 1,700 signatures on its tax cap petition, thus putting the Lilac City on the fast track to possibly being the second city in Strafford County to cap spending and, thusly, property taxes.
Although Somersworth City Councilors, after much deliberation, passed a budget in June that kept the tax rate under $1 — The final budget levied a 95 cent per $1,000 valuation impact on taxes, which includes a half-a-million cut to the school budget — those behind the tax cap movement are concerned about spending in the city.
Real Roseberry, a Route 108 resident who collected signatures during the last couple weeks, is pushing a tax cap because he said there is “too much going on that we can’t afford” in the city. He cited the new elementary school proposal — which comes with an estimated $20 million price tag before state aid is deducted — and the $1.4 million land on Stackpole Road recently purchased for the new school.
Logsdon said he just wants the tax cap on the ballot so residents can decide what they want to see happen in the city.