Town Meeting,property taxes in vt

02.27.10
i have decided to keep this posted as my road sign until after town meeting. i will not attend and do not feel comfortable there. i am white middle aged, middle income although teetering while i'm tweeting. ms makes me have priorities different than before diagnosis. suddenly i have to pay attention to what stresses me out. the town stopped communicating with me when i questioned why they almost sold my house and why no one had the human_ness to see if i was ok or whether we needed some help. i work in long term medicaid and ask every day to help some person trying to navigate a debilitating and sometimes devastating illness and they cannot accept their disability, how could they? Kubler Ross calls that denial. so when i fail to hire a lawyer or re enter the legal system about the town's actions, don't think i have failed. i have chosen to publish these words i speak and hope others will awaken to the progressive destruction of our assets' value. my dream of home ownership has been littered with battles and my scars are depper because of ms. this i must speak outloud. if people judge me they are welcome to swallow that themselves. i will not react. but when the masses awake to the tax mess that might lead to their homes being taken in Vermont to pay for schools to have laptops, then look to this posting and say, by God she was right. mary gerdt monkton vermont 2.27.10


The new paradigm.
Schools need money and in Vermont must suck the blood of the property tax payers.
When you have run out of blood, they eliminate you.
Such was nearly my lot but we got to be revived just in time.
I fear others will fall prey to the local tax collectors who collect a statewide tax by selling your property.
The rules usually read, anytime more than $250 is owed. Are you scared yet?
I know there are rules about it, I know there are procedures.
I also know this time, especially in the current economic conditions in Vermont, no one should lose their house over 6 thousand in taxes, 9 months late.
I nearly did.
So here is my version of Vermont Town Meeting and property tax.
Next week some Vermont citizens (unless they have to work or do not feel comfortable there like myself) will gather in the age old tradition of town meeting day.
My feeling is of being an outsider, a flatlander. Skeptical but never feeling welcome to speak up. Nauseated actually. Fred was so comfortable. He knew what was going on. I never really did. I guess that is my fault.
With voice voting and over zealous activist screaming, I felt as though I could not vote my conscious,
Nee
I felt it was more like a sermon at times and a church service. My fault.
I felt like glances from audience and those “higher ups” in town up on the school stage. I felt more detached than ever.
Yes, “all the world is a stage”, as was in Shakespeare’s time.
The town report a mysterious document of numbers, how can I audit that? What if I question that?
Who will be angered? Do I have the energy to take this on?
Meanwhile I am still trying to decipher why they picked our property to sell for taxes.
There were several others in our same sinking ship.
We feel fortunate to have had some nest egg, earmarked for my inevitable disability.
There goes that money, but at least we got to pay and stay.
A strange new paradigm for Vermonters.
So I am not faulting schools, only the funding schematic.
I am not faulting town meetings because it is up to me to adapt and choose not to attend.
I am seeking to inform other Vermonters that you must pay to stay and I am continuing my fight to stop the sales of homes in these economic times. The burden is too great.
Mary Gerdt Monkton,Vermont