Flyer Mailed Out to Springfield Residents
by Bill Dusty
This past week a flyer was mailed out to a number of Springfield residents detailing grievances against the City government. The single-page document, a photocopy of an original and sent out anonymously, compared tax rates, crime rates, and education rates between Springfield and seven other surrounding towns.
The document, entitled “Common Sense” and with the sub-heading “Addressed to the People of Springfield,” specifically takes aim at Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno and the City Council for spending “tons of time blowing smoke up our you-know-whats,” and declaring that because of them, “there is no value to living in Springfield.”
The document then goes on to pit Springfield’s numbers against seven other nearby communities – including such small towns as Agawam, Wilbraham, and Longmeadow. Overall, the comparisons make the valid point that Springfield’s taxes are indeed high. However, it is perhaps unfair to compare a medium-sized city’s tax rate with that of, say, Wilbraham – a town which has very little infrastructure to maintain (comparatively speaking). The residential tax rate is particularly misleading, for example, as it compares the tax on a $150,000 house. A quick look-up in the Longmeadow online assessor’s database (see “sale search”) shows that there is apparently no such thing as a $150,000 house in that town. So yes, technically, a Longmeadow resident would be paying less tax on a house of that value if he or she owned one there, but since there is no house valued that low, the comparison is fairly meaningless. There probably is, at some point, some kind of “low base number” considered when tax rates are applied. A poor town with low-valued housing stock and the same infrastructure needs as Longmeadow would probably have to have a higher rate in order to properly maintain that infrastructure. Longmeadow can afford to have a lower tax rate because a.) its housing stock is valued, overall, very high, and b.) the town has very little infrastructure (compared to a city) to maintain. (This was a purported factor in the historical split between Longmeadow and East Longmeadow, when the “East Village” (current East Longmeadow) required higher taxes to afford its greater infrastructure needs.)
The comparisons of different communities would perhaps have been more effective if the anonymous publisher had used rates and statistics from cities of comparable size to Springfield. That being said, the overall point of the flyer – that city leaders are fiddling while Springfield burns – is a sentiment that very many other Springfield residents share. This city will not become more prosperous by taxing middle-class households and small businesses that are increasingly getting fed up with being targeted as a funding source. Even as the city trumpets its redevelopment projects in the South End and along the State Street Corridor, it has also paved the way for over 100 more low-income residents (and their children) to enter the city’s Forest Park neighborhood – a part of the city that already saw the highest murder rate in the city in 2008 and that already struggles to educate the poor children now enrolled in its schools.
The anonymous flyer sent out to Springfield residents would perhaps have been better taken if the publishers had come from an identified and respected source. But the tone of the document directly reflects the anger and resentment that a significant segment of the people of this city are feeling towards those they have entrusted to look out for them.
To see a copy of the anonymous flyer, click here.
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7 Responses for “Flyer Mailed Out to Springfield Residents”
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Where did you get your blog layout from? I’d like to get one like it for my blog.
So what if there are no 150K houses in Longmeadow. Its about the tax rate. The author/s seleceted a number that means more to people than picking a higher priced home.
You make note of maintaining infrastructur and that either little towns have none of it to take care of.or less…Well what exactly in Springfield infrastructure is paid for by City taxes and State taxes? And with the increased money are we up to the level of the samller towns?
The City has never had a revenue problem, just a spending problem. Now with the rates going up and less people going to be around to pay them…We will have both.
This city cannot survive the way it is going….If Longhill comes to pass I will leave my home of thirty years.No one can quarantee “it won’t happen again”. I lived it and know that it WILL come again– nature of the history of project living– I wish The mayor and city council could stop this project but they are in bed with the FPCA and CCS..any numbskull can see it dones not work..12 or so members of these groups decided for all of Forest Park the ruination of this neighborhood
They do not understand that this will be with us for 30 years..Would you pay the price of a home plus taxes here to live next to section 8 housing?
I will not…not again..I am soured on the total disrepect both the developer–Winn– FPCA—CCS and city hall have showed us..no public meeting..no input ei senior housing or “PARK”or schools or even mixed housing.
I pray Mr. Shaun Donavan the new head of HUD really can get rid of this completely unethical and unkind way of wearhousing the poor and take away tax credits for the likes of Winn and follow a mixed approach…..People when this opens..it is for 30years…rents to to Winn(in Boston or his jet plane)…most of the jobs will end up being his ” special people” house prices will drop down to 50% less than now and we will have less services —-police ..amblances..doctors..and social services are to be cut next.What Then? Atlantic City or Trenton take your pick…..
I know I have posted on this before over the last few years. There are several numbers to look at. 1st is, there are houses in Longmeadow that you can buy for less than 210K. If you compare the taxes on both, you would pay less in Longmeadow. No just that, but you would pay about $600 a year less for insurance per vehicle assuming you have full coverage. So there is more to this than just taxes. If you have kids, Longmeadow is better too.
News Item – Spring 2010:
Winn completes rehab of Longhill Gardens, now named Forest Park Condominiums (how’s THAT for a joke!) – a 100% low-income only subsidized warehouse. Entire working, tax paying population of Forest Park neighborhood moves to Longmeadow. Entire remaining Forest Park neighborhood goes low-income only and becomes crime center of Western Mass. Everyone shouts out a BIG “THANK YOU” to the FPCA, CCS, Mayor Ryan, Mayor Sarno, Winn Development and The Republican Newspaper for destroying this neighborhood quicker than a New York minute. And let’s not forget to show our appreciation to Representative Cheryl Coakley-Rivera and Senator Buoniconti for their assistance in this destruction. In response, the FPCA, CCS, Ryan, Sarno and Republican respond “We are innocent. We don’t understand how this could have happened!”
Next week’s headline story: Springfield repeats the process neighborhood by neighborhood until entire working, tax-paying population moves to Longmeadow , East Longmeadow and Agawam, finally leaving Springfield the dead City it has been striving to become for the past decade.
Update: Holyoke, Chicopee, Longmeadow, East Longmeadow and Agawam obtain restraining order against FPCA, CCS, Ryan, Sarno, Winn and the Republican prohibiting them from coming within 5 miles of their Cities.
News update: Don’t forget to thank Dave Panagore without whose hard and diligent work on behalf of Winn Development this low-income warehouse could not become a reality. Good luck Hartford, you’ll need it!
The publishing of that letter shows another example of someone fed up with the way our city is run. There may be a variance in the way the statistics are interpreted. Springfield officials need to work dilligently and overtime to reduce high rates of school drop outs, crime and unemployment. Bringing in more businesses and single family homes will boost the tax base. Developing an all low income project like Longhill Gardens is bad judgement and counter productive.