Bailing Out? Or What Happened to My Taxes?
Natick’s Planning Board was “irked” when the Commonwealth rejected their request for a $17 million dollar grant for support of infrastructure requirements due to the proposed Mathworks expansion plans, according to an article in the Metrowest Daily News.
Click on this link to read the story. http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/news/x795996467
I won’t say “the entire story” because there’s a lot more to the issue. First, why do our town officials always expect the state to bail them out of problems created by a developer’s expansion plans? Why is it alway’s someone else’s problem to solve?
The town granted the “TIF” tax loophole discount to Mathworks a couple of years ago. Did they expect the money saved by Mathworks would go entirely to support sidewalks, soccer fields, and TCAN? Of course they did. However, anyone who could see beyond the town line knew Mathworks wasn’t saving money to give away.
It’s kind of like the exuses offered for why Town Hall needs to replace a $25,000 eight year old boiler. Or why a ten year old cafeteria tile floor in the Brown School needs a replacement at a cost of $65,000. (Hey, I could have someone do it right for about half that and make myself a few grand profit. What’s so expensive?) The excuse offered by Charles Sisitsky “Town Hall was built to minimum specifications.” Where did we hear that one before? Whenever someone points out the problems, it’s always the other guys problem.
So the state said, “no” and it’s not the Mathworks, nor their sponsors in Town Hall who are to blame for traffic woes and neighborhood encroachment. It’s the state’s fault.
Can I blame the state for the $190,000 tab out of my property tax bill to rehab a well at the state-owned Elm Bank, located in Wellesley? Of course not. The Town Meeting approved it. Thanks guys. They snuck that one in between a carpet at the library and new gutters at the 10 year old DPW Headquarters. (was that another example of good supervision of building, or just more “minimum basics?”
We all understand the desire to be better than the one nextdoor, but please folks. Natick will never be another Wellesley, no matter how much granite is put into those curbstones. And it really doesn’t matter if you helped push the bluecollar factory out of town in order to find a developer to build faux townhomes on a strip of land called a “rail trail”. Those details aren’t going to turn the suspected arsenic-laden site into an short version of the Minuteman Bikeway. It’s already been done, and alot better, all around us. Just click on this link. http://minutemanbikeway.org/Pages/beyond.html
