BRATTLEBORO-The recent property-tax rate change is a big one - an actual upheaval of a lot of Vermont, the biggest change of its kind I can remember in the 43 years I've lived here.
I see firsthand its effect on low-income residents in my retired neighbor. who will have to move out of state after having lived in Brattleboro for 36 years and who has just finished paying his mortgage. He doesn't want to move, but he "also wants to eat," he says.
I think that this political policy does not represent government for the people.
Vermont is a beautiful, peaceful, rural state. I think its beauty and peacefulness has led to a meditative, independent-thinking, creative, helpful population. For the most part, the people who came here from other places, attracted by the mountains and snow and simple lifestyle, shared the those traits and blended in.
In the past, Vermont politicians also have been Independent and creative, and they worked across the aisle for all Vermont and earned the state the reputation of one of the - if not the - most liberal state in U.S. It has been a consistently good place to live.
Brattleboro, where I live, has cultivated a vibrant culture of lower-income, not-as-low-income, and not-so-rich inhabitants. I don't think we need the changes the new property tax rates would bring.
I am a lifelong Democrat, but I will vote independent this election.
Leslie Read
Brattleboro
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