We’ve been reporting on the number of folks in this crowd who’ve stepped up to tell us all how much more they’d like to pay towards our schools. We’ve asked them to PYMWYMI, all to no avail.
So let’s touch on another aspect of their campaign, that being their petition, which still shows not a single solitary tax increase figure. Go figure.
We reported earlier today that Brunswick system enrollment now stands at 2,414. We have no idea how many households these kids represent, but let’s just use an average of two per household, which may actually be high in this era.
Using that figure, we come up with about 1,200 households, In the old days, that would mean about 2,400 parents; in this day and age, it’s probably more like 1,800 parents. Add to that all the adults whose children are grown that vociferously declare their support for more spending and higher taxes, and you’re surely well beyond the 2,400 concerned individuals, right? Witness this quote on the higher taxes site:
In our conversations with Brunswick residents over the past few weeks, we’ve encountered a great many people who’ve expressed support for education despite the fact that they don’t have children in the schools.
Well, as of yesterday, Brunswick Community Divided claims 370 signers of their on-line petition, of which 19 or more are XXXXX, and 253 signers of their paper petition. Assuming those who signed both are legion, you end up with 10-20% of the eligible cohort who have publicly declared their desire to pay higher taxes, meaning 80-90% are unwilling to publicly proclaim their checkbooks are open to whatever others would like.
That’s not exactly a rousing mandate for higher taxes, is it? Especially when you consider that schoolies are amongst the most vocal advocates for ‘gladly paying more.’ Bookies are a distant second.
We are mightily disappointed, as you can well imagine, that so far none have given a hard dollar increase they are volunteering, but we realize there are math challenges in coming up with an answer.
So let’s give them an easier question so they can get in the swing of things. How about if all those signers and sign-posters get back to us, or post on the BCD site, exactly how much they are already paying in property taxes.
That will give them a basis from which they can project their increased figures for the coming years. Even if the town doesn’t raise rates as high as they’d like, since they can always send in more than they are billed, in case they didn’t already know that.
We can’t wait to see how much they are paying, so we can compare it to the town average for residential properties. Excluding mobile homes, the figures we have show an average of approx. $X,XXX per account.
We’ll take the figures made public and average them to help readers understand just where our friends rank in the taxpaying rolls. We’re sure they think they are in the upper tier, but we have some reason to believe they are a bit delusional in that regard. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Hmmm….there’s another possible episode of Hypocrisy Now, once we get it on the air. But we digress.
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