Bow Voters, Here We Go Again
by Chuck Douglas
Bow voters, here we go again. Same song, different chorus. The Selectmen want a $5 million bond issue to build a combined safety, emergency management and fire house which is supposed to be based off of the plans that were overwhelmingly rejected last year at town meeting.
Someone once observed that a sign of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. This go round, the Selectmen handpicked a committee made up of no active members of the Concerned Taxpayers of Bow so that they could get a recommendation for a combined multi-million dollar building. Most people think that the planned vote is premature because we still do not know what it would cost to repair the existing fire and community building.
Even though they have had a year to determine the cost of repair, the Selectmen have refused to put that item into a warrant article so that voters could have a choice between the $5 million plan and something that would be less than $1 million to deal with deficiencies in the current building. If they are not forthcoming with full, open disclosure of costs of remediation, they will be faced with a competing warrant article in March.
The argument that a big, new building plan is needed because of future growth in Bow is a false one. First of all, the current Capital Improvement Plan shows that the anticipated population in Bow will go from 7,523 people this year to 8,038 in 2040. That is an increase of 20 people a year for 25 years and if you want to see the chart, it is on page 130 of the town’s Capital Improvement Plan.
The school population has already dropped and probably will continue to do so. In New Hampshire statewide, the trend is down because school population peaked in the 2002-2003 school year and since then New Hampshire schools have lost 28,000 students. That is equivalent to the entire population of the town of Salem. Future growth projections for town services need to be tempered dramatically.
Oh and by the way, there is another catch. After the $5 million building is erected, they want to tear down and construct a new community building. That bond issue last year was in the Capital Improvement Plan in the amount of $4 million. When you take $9 million in bonds and do the interest over a 20-year bonding period, you are looking at almost double that figure with interest. Bow is already in the top 30 of the highest tax rates in New Hampshire at almost $30 per thousand.
It is time for the voters to start showing up at budget meetings to tell the Budget Committee your concerns.
The public hearing for the school budget will be February 9 at 7:00 p.m. at the Bow Memorial School and the municipal budget will be heard on February 12 at the High School in the auditorium starting at 7:00 p.m.
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Chuck Douglas is a resident of Bow and the Chairman of the Concerned Taxpayers of Bow.