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Uninformed by Choice

Madison faces several issues that will have significant implications for the pocketbook of its residents. Academy School, school physical plant, and demographics are top issues. The price tags for progress are stiff, at least $14 million for Academy, operating costs excluded, and a second school re-alignment at $150-plus million. Madison isn’t alone in addressing demographic changes and weak housing prices. This is a statewide issue driven by Hartford.

The town does budget and plan to the benefit of all residents to the dismay of some. The process of planning and budgeting is challenging given the unknowns of the state, but is prudent and necessary in fiscally uncertain times. Things do get done, the Scranton Library expansion funded in part by a $9 million financing by the town. Downtown telephone poles don’t require trampling private property rights to check a box.

Two years ago, the voters of Madison defeated the Ryerson/Phase 1 of the school re-alignment plan by a 2 to 1 margin with only 32.3 percent of eligible voters casting a ballot. You may not like the outcome, but the people spoke. Better turnout may have addressed this to-do item. The annual budget referendum has averaged about 13 percent voter turnout over the past 10 cycles; 87 percent of the eligible voters apparently don’t seem to care. Voters are uninformed by choice, not because of the first selectman.

I spent two decades in the public finance arena and the “build it and they will come” mantra has an almost perfect record of failure unless broader government economic policies are pro-growth. I don’t see that coming out of Hartford, so failure is likely with taxpayers on the hook.

I’m voting for Tom Banisch for first selectman because I don’t want the Hartford playbook of spend-and-borrow to go local.

Peter Loftus

Madison