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William Lopes: Casino Revenue and Charter Review Commission Can Help Get House Back in Order
The Tiverton Casino Revenue is a major opportunity for Tiverton residents to put the town’s financial house in order after many years of poor fiscal management and bad decision making, resulting in a doubling of taxes in ten years and our town government living beyond …
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Stephen Clarke: Resolve on the FTR Will Leave Time to Review the Rest of the Charter
Following rushed charter hearings last summer, the Town Council has now called for a Charter Review Commission (CRC) to be elected with the Financial Town Referendum (FTR) topic front and center. Twelve of the 24 candidates running would put the FTR at risk of outright …
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Raymond Fougere: Direct Vote on the Budget Gives Balance to Government
Let’s face it, the more citizens involved in the political process, the more its complexity increases, exponentially. Every citizen has equal say, but there are too many of us to carry on debate to its logical conclusions. A pure democracy can often be unwieldy, we’d …
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Donna Cook: Be Wary of Candidates Who Won’t Answer Questions, but Will Insult
Last week Charter Review Commission (CRC) candidate, Andrea Souza, tried to explain her rationale for saying the Budget Committee (BC) was “no better than Stalin, Lenin, or even Kim Jung Un.” There is no rationale to compare Budget Committee(BC) members to murderers. It is offensive …
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When Taxes “Only” Go Up, but Property Values “Only” Go Down
After the Tiverton Budget Committee put forward its recommendation for a 0.5% increase in local taxes, which was significantly less than the Town Council and School Committee wanted, Town Council Member John Edwards the Fifth (son of state Representative John Edwards the Fourth) complained that …
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TTA Denounces Actions of School Officials
On Friday afternoon, a Facebook page known to be allied with members of the Tiverton School Committee reported that the committee had unanimously voted to sue the town on behalf of the elector petition that committee chairman Jerome Larkin and vice chair Sally Black submitted …
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School Department Builds Surplus, May Campaign for More
As I write this on Wednesday evening, the Tiverton School Committee has just announced a special meeting on Saturday morning to discuss the town budget and whether to put forward an alternative budget for the ballot at the May 20 financial town referendum. The prospect …
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Tiverton Homeowners Paying 2044 Taxes with 1990 Income
A while back, while discussing the annual decision of voters to pass budgets that increase Tiverton’s tax levy by less than 1%, somebody quipped that the town couldn’t keep operating on a 1988 budget. Ah, 1988. The country was deciding who would fill Ronald Reagan’s …
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Remembering the Library’s Promise of a “Slight” Increase
Tiverton residents should go back and read the headlines of some of the articles that the library put on its Web site supporting the bond to build a new library, such as: “Library Costs Will Increase Only Slightly” in the Sakonnet Times on October 17, …
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How the School Department Turned Temporary Stimulus into a Permanent Surplus
Being busy in spring 2011, I didn’t pay much attention when the Tiverton schools’ business administrator explained that the state was requiring the district to “restate” $740,000 in state aid. He meant that the state had been giving the money as “restricted” aid but, going …
