I am 70 years old and have been living in Harvard for 32 years. I would like to live in the house that I built myself for the rest of my life. The biggest challenge to doing this is the high cost of property taxes. Many of my neighbors have told me that they will not be able to retire in Harvard because of the high property taxes.
With respect to the Town Hall, the work environment seems just fine to me, the building is in good structural condition, but does need some repairs. However, it is absolutely not necessary to spend $4 million, of which $400,000 will be spent on air conditioning and heating alone.
In the following analysis I assume 20-year bonds with 4 percent interest and 1,850 households in Harvard to get the average cost per household. I also will use the first year’s interest payments, not the average interest payments over 20 years. People are interested in what they have to shell out now, not 20 years from now.
For the Town Hall (Article 18) principal plus interest comes to $144/year average. The proposed increase in the Community Preservation Act surcharge (Article 36) which is used to pay for part of the Town Hall project is $170/year average. Next year we will have Hildreth House at approximately $5.5 million, which comes to $268/year average principal plus interest. Littleton County Road (Article 27) is $36/year average.
In 2014 the schools will have a shortfall of $539,000, which comes to $291/year average. Add all these items up and we are up to an average tax increase of $909/year. This does not include the automatic 2 1/2 percent yearly increase which will bring the total to well above $1,000/year.
If we continue to spend, in my opinion irresponsibly, on things like the Town Hall and Hildreth House, more of the elderly will have to leave town and taxes for younger residents will increase, the quality of our schools will suffer, and the only people that will be able to retire in Harvard will be the well off and retired government employees.
Peter Zuk
Old Littleton Road
