If you are a Warren resident it’s a good bet that you know a few details about the upcoming November 4 bond vote supporting building a new town garage and road maintenance facility. If you are also a property owner and voting yes, you know it will result in a modestly larger property tax bill. No sugar-coating it. If you vote no,” then expect no increase in your next property tax bill due to this particular bond. But do not kid yourself for one second about current costs versus defraying costs. If we fail to support this well-constructed bond, we as a town will over time, and in various ways, pay more for the most essential services and maintenance of our infrastructure.
Additionally, we will effectively render ourselves ill-prepared for future natural disasters; those well beyond the current daily needs and demands. We can expect an increased occurrence of flash floods, more frequent “once in a century” snowstorms, perhaps two or three more severe mud seasons annually, and bridge failures like the one on Route 100 earlier this summer. And we all know that costs never go down, they go up. Warren residents will inevitably be faced with devoting more tax dollars to maintaining our roads and bridges in the coming years, while we all experience what is a changing climate. This will come with rising costs and fewer federal dollars. Why not be prepared? This is a very clear case of: you can pay me now, or you can pay me later.
Several iterations of Warren Select Boards have, over the past two-plus decades, diligently wrestled with confronting the town’s serious need for upgrading the existing facility. For nearly six years on the select board, I was part of this discussion. I will tell you this right now. It’s not easy. The times of “fixing-up, “patching-up,” and “making do” have now come and gone. Vermonters tend to be a frugal lot and we want to, by nature, simply make do. The overall status and location of the current facility is well beyond that type of frugality. We are now into the second quarter of the 21st century. We are trying to make do with a facility that was – at the very best – designed for lesser demands, smaller scope, smaller budgets, smaller population, smaller staff, and the more modest less sophisticated equipment of the mid-20th century. The time has come. To use another well-used phrase associated with this discussion, we have kicked the can down the road for several decades. The town needs to move ahead. And when I say “town” here, that means us: the residents, citizens, town employees, small businesses, and visitors alike – we need to vote for this bond. We are the town, and we need now, to move forward.
Or … we can if we want, continue to parse the very concept of need. We can continue to quibble over all the various particulars ad nauseum / ad infinitum. We can all continue to play the “what if” game indefinitely. With numerous and powerful web-browser platforms at our fingertips, we can all “source” variously purported lower cost solutions. Using newer AI models, we can all find so-called solutions that tout “cheaper,” “better,” “more resourceful,” and in my opinion, more fantastical sorts of faux solutions. None of these “solutions” are necessarily applicable to our particular needs. We can continue to, in effect, kick the can down the road. And as the clock ticks, things become more expensive. Our current needs will morph, and future public demands will subsequently become greater in scope and environmental circumstances, probably, more acute.
Let’s spend our valuable and hard-earned tax dollars wisely. And effectively. This bond issue does exactly that. No frills and with an eye to the future. This bond issue is not a matter of want versus need. Our town’s existing infrastructure – our roads and bridges and culverts – our demands for effective and safe snow removal – all require a targeted proactivity that this new facility, at the proposed new location, will deliver.
Warren neighbors, let’s get this done.
Graves lives in Warren.
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