Well, here we are in Readfield, another year, another tax increase.

Let’s see what’s going on with our combined government. We’ve got an expensive, high-end John Deere commercial mower with a non-floating deck that makes it basically useless for mowing around most of the headstones in the cemetery.

We’ve got a rusted-out town pick-up that’s on its last legs.

We’ve got a new town truck bought by the town manager with emergency funds without voter or select board approval after residents originally voted to repair the old truck.

We are purchasing a new sidewalk Holder out of the municipal maintenance budget (Article 9) without saying that in the warrant.

They want $45,000 to start planning for a sidewalk addition while the final cost for the original “free” sidewalk had a 40 percent cost overrun that was not guaranteed to be paid by the federal government but ultimately was. Also, we were told there would be no maintenance costs because we had staff already on the town payroll.

They want to raise $5,000 of taxpayer money for the Union Meeting House, a private property paying no taxes. On two occasions, they refused to put money into the Torsey Dam, which protects a lake bringing in roughly $200,000 in tax revenues that is used year round by many residents for many purposes, while the UMH sits unused 350 days a year.

All these things are and have been supported by the same 80 percent of the select board.

If you ran your household budget or business this irresponsibly you would be homeless and bankrupt.

The only turn around is a lot of “no” votes, including the school budget and warrant Nos. 8, 9, 12, 27, 28 and 29 at least. This would send a clear message that this irresponsible behavior is unacceptable.

We deserve better.

David Hepfner

Readfield