Voting Day
March 10th, 2009Today Keene, Monadnock, and various other towns and districts vote for the coming school year’s budget, town officers, and the various warrant articles and other decisions citizens make in a democracy. For Monadnock, at least, there’s far less at stake than last year, and the mood is far more calm.
Last year I wrote at this time:
Right now, I already feel like I’ve been shot in the back—and the reason is simple. Everything the Monadnock Taxpayers Association asked for they got—and nothing the budget committee or school board recommended went through. I think that means one thing:
The people of the district trust a private anti-tax group more than they do the officials they elect to represent them.
That was public. To a friend, I wrote:
Nothing has gone as it should. Where is the light? How did this happen and how does this occur? I wish I could see a step from here. It all seems dark.
We’re a long way from that. This year, we have a budget that should pass—in fact, the default budget is higher, a reflection of better accounting procedures and cuts made to reduce the tax burden as much as possible. There’s a teacher’s contract, better test scores,¹ and a sense that Monadnock is “on the rise.” The school board—though there are still issues—is by far calmer than in the past.
All good things.
The flip side is that this is in the midst of what is shaping up to being the worst recession in thirty years—and possibly longer. Depending on who is to be believed, then it’s either going to be very bad for a year, or very bad for longer than that.
There’s no doubt that there are people in the community who are hurting—it’s nation wide. And for right now, we can adopt a “let’s see” attitude—this is the first time in three years there was a raise for teachers, and there’s no doubt that the employees of the district were hurting long before anyone mentioned the term “housing crisis” or “unemployment.”
Still, that was the past. At this point, there’s a need for healing, there’s a need to not discuss contracts and pay raises, and all the rest. 2009-20010 will be here very quickly, and hopefully many of the things that are improving now will continue in the future. Hopefully, the same will be said about the economy.
But if the latter isn’t true, we ought to be prepared to sacrifice a year of salary. There’s nobody who wants to—but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it.
It’s a long way away. But that doesn’t mean we can’t start preparing for the thought now.
On another thought, Keene is likely to vote for a new middle school. This is very much a good thing for the city, although, as always, the timing could be better. I’m trusting that pain now will lead to better things in the future—a tough argument to make, but life is pain—anyone who says anything different is selling something.
Update Every article on the warrant passed. Good news for everyone.
1 Not that these mean much… ↺
