Letter: Voters should get involved

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To the editor,

Get involved if you don’t like what your elected officials are doing (or not doing).

Voter apathy is a somewhat understandable sentiment; after all, who doesn’t occasionally feel like “you can’t fight city hall,” or “those in power do what they want anyway,” etc.

In actuality however, real and meaningful change can be effected by the grass roots efforts of citizens who are willing to get involved. And I do not mean make a sign and stand in front of the state Capital, although that may work as well.

Send a letter or make a toll free phone call to your elected representatives, and let them know that your next vote will be directly related to how they vote on an issue that you feel strongly about.

Which brings me to the topic at hand.

The state of Connecticut is considering removing the official necessity for local (car) taxes to be fully paid before a vehicle can be registered and driven. Who cares right? Won’t affect me, I pay my taxes.

Well, in actuality it will affect you. By requiring local (personal property) taxes to be 100 percent paid prior to registration, the state by virtue of a simple computer link to the town tax office, ensures 100 percent compliance with payment of personal property taxes.

If that verification is removed at the DMV, you can be assured that some segment of the population will not pay their local vehicle taxes. And since the town police, fire department, sanitation, road crew, etc. are funded by taxes, if several thousand dollars of taxes are not paid, where do you think the non-paid taxes will be made up from?

That would be you, by the way.

You and I will be paying more taxes the next year to make up for the folks who did not pay the previous year. It is that simple, the taxes collected and money spent, have to be balanced.

So, if paying more taxes for those who don’t pay their share, somehow bothers you, pick up a pen, a phone, a computer tablet, or what have you, and say something to your state representative.

James E. Hagan Jr.

Beacon Falls