Killington Residents Endorse Plan To Join New Hampshire

AP ^ | 03/02/04 | AP

[Pikamax]

Killington Residents Endorse Plan To Join New Hampshire Town Wants To Secede Over Property Taxes

POSTED: 2:30 pm EST March 2, 2004

KILLINGTON, Vt. -- Voting with a thunderous "aye," Killington residents endorsed a plan Tuesday for the ski resort town to secede from Vermont.

The overwhelming voice vote inside the elementary school opened the next chapter in what could be a long and costly push to join New Hampshire, a state 25 miles to the east. Town officials estimated between 200-300 people attended the meeting, and that about two-thirds of them supported the idea in the voice vote.

"Other towns have been sitting back and waiting for Killington to break ground," said Jim Blackman, 46. "It is Killington's obligation to break that ground."

Blackman's comments were echoed by many of the dozen-odd residents who spoke at the town meeting.

Their comments mirrored Killington's long-standing frustration over how much the town of roughly 1,000 pays the state in taxes and how little residents say they get in return to pay for the town's school and municipal services.

That frustration drove town officials to launch the secession movement last fall. The town already has spent about $20,000 studying the feasibility and potential advantages of joining New Hampshire, the state where it was originally chartered in 1761.

Secession activists say the legality and economic rationale behind the plan are sound.

Vermont lawmakers have given the plan a lukewarm reception. They have said it is largely symbolic and probably will be voted down by the Legislature.

"The state is treating us like a cash cow," said David Lewis, the town manager.

Not everyone at the meeting was in favor of the plan, however.

"I was born and raised a Vermonter, and I hope to always be," said resident Julie Thomas, 38.

At the heart of the displeasure with Vermont is the state's new system of financing education, adopted in 1997 under order of the Supreme Court, which dramatically increased property taxes in communities, like Killington, deemed to be property wealthy.

Having won the endorsement of their constituents, town officials will now begin drafting a petition to present to New Hampshire Gov. Craig Benson and the state's Legislature.

After the meeting, Lewis said town officials want New Hampshire's approval before approaching Vermont's lawmakers -- who have the final say in whether the town can become part of the Granite State.

New Hampshire officials had declined to comment before Tuesday's vote. "We'll wait to see what the results of the vote are and we'll go from there," Wendell Packard, spokesman for New Hampshire Gov. Craig Benson, said last week.

[correctthought]

Thanks Chuckster, Conservative Me ... or would it be "Conservative You"?

-Alex

[2banana]

I have friends in Vermont, not surprising since I am a native Vermonter, who have been forced to sell off their farm piecemeal to generate enough cash to pay their property taxes. This farm has been in their family since 1850. To think that they actually voted for this is simply dumb.

Maybe not so dumb. Yes, this particular issue is by judicial fiat. But look at the representatives that Vermont regularly sends to congress, the senate and elects as governors. They are about as socialist as you can get...

[The Mayor]

I heard this a couple months ago and couldn't find the story anywhere. Glad it's finally out!

[Chuckster]

When I returned to Vermont in 2000 after forty years of traveling and working around the world I intended to set myself up for retirement in the town where I was born and where my grandparents, great-grandparents and gg-grandparents are buried. To my great dissapointment my friends (mentioned in my previous post) informed me that, since the state and particularly Chittenden County, had been taken over by liberal activists from outside the state and that taxes and land use policies had gotten so onerous that I would be better advised to look elsewhere in the state. I ended up buying a small farm in the Northeast Kingdom where I hope to retire soon.

Getting to the point here: Everywhere I went I asked the people I met (Who seemed universally conservative in their views) why the state government was so liberal. One farmer, in who's barn I was checking out the 19th century post and beam construction, simply pointed to the sign on the side of said barn. It read "Take Back Vermont". That was the most eloquent expression of the sentiment I heard repeated by everyone I asked.

Of course I must confess; I didn't ask any of the latte sipping university types on Church Street in Burlington.

[Grand Old Partisan]

Then as now, the Unites States Army is the army of the entire United States, even areas in which traitors have seized control of local government. If one day, for example, secessionist Moslem-Americans seize control of, say, Dearborn MI, the United States Army will have just as much right to be there as it did to be in Charleson SC in 1861.

[Agnes Heep]

They can always secede with their feet.

[4CJ]

If you want to praise US soldiers today I'll be the first to stand up and join you. But if those soldiers are ordered to attack my state, town, and family and if I see them charging at my town with bayonets trying to kill me as they were to southern civilians in the 1860's, it is a God-given right to shoot back.

Bump. You wouldn't be alone.

[GOPcapitalist]

Whatever. Just remember one thing though - If you shoot at me, my state, my home, and my family like Lincoln's troops did, I'll shoot back just like they shot back. And I'll do so because it is my right to exercise self defense.

[GOPcapitalist]

United States Army will have just as much right to be there as it did to be in Charleson SC in 1861.

Exactly what right does any government have to coerce its will upon a people who do not desire its presence in their vicinity?

[Grand Old Partisan]

"Exactly what right does any government have to coerce its will upon a people who do not desire its presence in their vicinity?"

The United States Constitution, the supreme law of the land -- even including states, localities, and buildings occupied by traitors -- gives the United States Army that right.

[GOPcapitalist]

The United States Constitution, the supreme law of the land -- even including states, localities, and buildings occupied by traitors -- gives the United States Army that right.

WRONG! The United States Constitution is premised upon the CONSENT of the people TO BE GOVERNED, not an illegitimately claimed "right" to coerce them by point of arms. In fact that is one of the reasons why the Constitution makes it a RIGHT of the people to keep and bear arms - so that they may resist the tyranny of the government if it ever becomes one! Sadly, it did become one for at least four years in the early 1860's and some people took up those arms and resisted it as was their God-given right to do.

[Grand Old Partisan]

Your anti-USA rant could easily have been copied from an Al-Queda communique. Again, neo-Confederates hate the United States as much as their Confederate heroes did.

[GOPcapitalist]

Your anti-USA rant could easily have been copied from an Al-Queda communique.

Don't be stupid, Partisan. I said NOTHING that would not have been agreed to by the founding fathers themselves, viz.: the people have a right to bear arms and that right exists in part to protect them against a tyrannical government that usurps power from them and governs by force rather than consent.

Do YOU deny that fact, partisan? If so then YOU are no better than the gun grabbing police state leftists of Handgun Control Inc and the Barbara Boxer senate campaign.

[Grand Old Partisan]

Five U.S. troops were killed yesterday, while you continue to praise the killers of U.S. troops in the 1860s. Disgusting!

[GOPcapitalist]

Five U.S. troops were killed yesterday, while you continue to praise the killers of U.S. troops in the 1860s.

Big difference. Those US troops were raping, plundering, stealing, murdering, and invading the homes of their fellow citizens in their fellow states.

Once again, if a U.S. soldier is in harms way today fighting enemy nations I'll be the first to stand up and praise him. If he becomes the object of a tyrant and turns his guns around on my state, my city, my home, and my family though and starts firing with the object of killing, raping, looting, and plundering I will exercise my God given and constitutional 2nd amendment right to bear arms in my own defense. In that regard, I don't care who he's a soldier for anymore be it Al Qaeda, Caesar, the King of England, or some dictator tyrant who illegitimately usurps the Constitution and turns the U.S. army against his own citizens. The fact that he is shooting at me for illegitimate reasons gives me a right to self defense and that belief was shared by every one of the founding fathers. So quite frankly, I find it disgusting that YOU shun the legacy of the founding fathers and their avowed belief in the right to bear arms by impugning the name of those who share in that belief with fraudulent associations to Al Qaeda and other mohammedan scum.

[Grand Old Partisan]

Over the decades, advocates of killing U.S. troops have professed various ideologies but are one in their hatred for the UNITED States of America.

[GOPcapitalist]

Over the decades, advocates of killing U.S. troops have professed various ideologies but are one in their hatred for the UNITED States of America.

When in battle an actor fires upon his enemy not out of desire to do harm to that enemy but out of knowledge that the said enemy will do harm upon the actor if he does not fire. Thus the killing of troops to any sane individual cannot be an act of advocacy.