To the Editor:
S.127, a bill that passed out of the Senate Committee on Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs, allows towns and cities to use project-based tax increment financing (TIF) to subsidize new housing developments. The town would use a TIF to pay off a municipal bond created to finance the public infrastructure (wastewater treatment, water, roads, etc.) needed by the new development. The bond is paid back from the increase in real estate taxes coming from the land where the new development is located. TIFs are good tools for redeveloping blighted urban areas into industrial parks, and such TIFs involve multiple projects.
In contrast, S.127 enables project-specific TIFs intended for residential development in rural towns. The problem is that the new housing development increases the demand for K-12 education and other public services whereas most of the TIF tax revenue goes to pay back the bond and does not cover the increasing costs for public services. As a consequence, these TIFs will increase the tax burden on current residents, who must cover the costs of providing public services to new residents.
Is it fair to force current residents to subsidize new residents? Is it fair that current residents should have to subsidize developers?
Further, the legislation requires that TIF-enabled developers be bonded. Although this helps to insulate taxpayers from non-performance by the developer, this will significantly increase the cost of the development, thereby lowering the chance that the development will include much “affordable” housing. It’s also uncertain that having bonded developers covers situations where the housing market is down, and new homes won’t sell.
If Vermont politicians are serious about putting a lid on high real estate taxes, they shouldn’t be voting to allow TIFs for residential housing.
-Robert Fireovid, South Hero
Letter to the Editor:
IMO we must take ownership for much of the satanic energy that our apathy has enabled. These forces have been filling our planet with toxins that are now in the air we breathe, the food we eat, the water we drink, the soils we grow in and the medicines we take. Our planet has been poisoned and is now almost entirely toxic.
Every government agency that we were told is here to safeguard us, is actually being held captive by the very industries that they are to protect us from.
They fill us with fear and anger and then munch on the loosh, the negative emotions, that they have programmed, us, to create. Don’t you see? They have manipulated our perceptions to such a degree that the world we see, one full of frustration, anger and despair, is the world that we then manifest into reality. In effect, we have been programmed to create our own Hell.
We have also been well trained to follow orders. While dead bodies float by in pools of toxicity, we do nothing. Why? Because our elected officials, whose lead we follow, have chosen to do nothing. Like boiling frogs, we are being killed slowly, unaware that we are being boiled alive. We must awaken before we pass out.
The Covid scandal, H1N1 before it and the Swine flu before it, are perfect examples of a public that has chosen its own extinction before it dares to confront criminality in government. For me this is the Great Awakening that everything we have been told, by everybody that we thought we could trust, is actually a lie being brought to us by evil forces, desperate to protect their stolen wealth and continued control over us.
Lies all lies, designed by evil, satanic forces to keep us forever spinning in fear and in constant survival mode. We are being numbed and dumbed , distracted and deceived by these forces to stay in these low level energy frequencies where the power of who we are, is never realized.
Man has 38 trillion, women have 26 and children have 17 trillion cells in their bodies. They control every aspect of keeping this incredibly complex and intricate body alive. It is the most advanced communication system on the planet and it all happens subconsciously, automatically without a spec of conscious awareness.
But all this is changing. Quantum Physics’ study of matter and energy has led to the birth of a new moral code. Out of the ashes of satanic control, a new consciousness is emerging, one that embraces our ability to think and then act on our own.
Consciousness is now the fabric of the universe, not greed, money, power and exploitation. A new non-material, nonlinear world is taking shape and the existing material forces, the status quo, are petrified. They are desperately trying to hold on to their wealth by keeping us spinning in fear and deception, unaware of what is actually going on. Heil 1984 and a well disguised fourth reich.
I would love to march into the offices of these hypocrites and demand to see proof that our interests, our freedoms, our health and our safety are actually being protected by our so-called public servants.
Although my brain injury has affected my physical ability to speak without mumbling, walk without stumbling and navigate with double vision, I am far from helpless.
Like a blind man who now hears better, my spirituality has become heightened. I am choosing to use my energy, my “I am”, presence to raise consciousness and to give members at the Barn a safe place to practice free thought, free speech, free assembly and free expression, to love their God, and each other. Informed consent is one of these freedoms and it has been trashed by evil government forces around the world.
Media whores and a criminal government will not be able to hide all these truths much longer. In fact lies connected with the covid scandal have already begun to surface. It is only a matter of time before we all become light warriors.
The light of truth will make it impossible for these dark twisted psychopaths and the satanists to “play us” much longer. In poor little ole Bridgewater, next to the Rockefeller controlled town of wealth, Woodstock Vermont, Humanity 2.0 is striving to be born.
Become a member, come to our events, our films, our lectures or organize your own.
-Chris Pratt, founder Bridgewater Barn