In her story that was in The Citizen today, Gail Ober focused more on the mayoral race between Ken Merrifield and Clayton Gassett. If anyone has details on what was said in the other races, let me know so I can make sure all the details are up here.
In the meantime, here is the full text from
The Citizen:
Tax cap discussion dominates debate
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
It didn't take long at Monday's candidates debate before the mayoral contenders got to the nitty-gritty of what the majority of the citizens in the packed Opera House came to see — a discussion about the recent tax cap override.
In a debate sponsored by Choose Franklin, challenger and former Mayor Clayton Gassett told the crowd how he felt about incumbent Mayor Kenneth Merrifield's decision to veto the city council override of the 20-year cap.
"I didn't think the present mayor should have threatened the council before he vetoed [the override]," said Gassett, who took a question about the role of the city mayor as a chance to talk about the recent override.
"I did not believe the people had the money to give up, with 10 percent of the city unemployed," said Merrifield, who reiterated his long-held position that the tax cap should only be overridden by referendum. "And I didn't think the charter allowed us to go back and collect it."
It's been nearly 20 years since Franklin became the first New Hampshire city to vote for a tax cap and, responding to a mistake in revenue projects, the Franklin City Council became the first of the subsequent cities that adopted similar caps to break it.
In 2008 and 2009, the city fell victim to a near perfect storm of economic disaster. A $449,807 mistake on the annual revenue projections coupled with plummeting property values and a 10 percent unemployment rate left the city with a nearly $1 million shortfall.
Spending and hiring freezes were ordered by City Manager Elizabeth Corrow and cuts were made to the proposed budget, but when all was said and done, the council voted 7-1 to adopt a fiscal year 2009-2010 budget that exceed the cap by the amount of the mistake — $449,807.
Defending his veto of the budget vote, Merrifield told the audience that his goal as mayor was to see a vibrant, thriving Franklin and keeping the taxes low was one of the only way the city was going to reach his goal.
While not disagreeing with Merrifield's goals, Gassett said his issue with the override and Merrifield's veto was that it was too little, too late.
"If you knew about this mistake, why wasn't something done then?" he asked. "I don't see that as leadership."
Gassett said the finance committee was aware of the mistake "shortly after it was made" and that's when the council should have acted.
Merrifield agreed that the finance committee was aware of the mistake but noted that Corrow briefed it and the full council the next meeting after he found the mistake.
"If the council had wanted to, they could have taken action at any time," Merrifield said.
Responding to a question regarding the next budget cycle that promises little improvement over the last, Merrifield said he could continue his regular lobbying of the state government to continue distributing tax revenues to the communities.
"A robust economy and the economic development of our undervalued property is how we reach our goals," Merrifield said.
"I think if the council puts its nose to the grindstone, we can tighten next year's budget," Gassett said, adding that he had to "be careful about what he said because it could get him in trouble later."
Answering a question about the city's support of outside agencies such as the Community Action Program (CAP) and the Franklin Business and Industrial Development Corp. (FBIDC), both said they support the work of all of them.
Gassett said he especially supported CAP because of the number of people helped through its programming while Merrifield said his support for FBIDC was unwavering.
"This city needs some kind of economic development arm," he said, adding that any decision to defund the FBIDC should only be accompanied by a decision to support a similar agency.
City elections take place next Tuesday. There are contested races for all three city council seats and candidates for all open School Board seats.
