Stock Market Plunge Prompts Voter to Reject New Police Fire Facility in Vermont

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Brattleboro rejects police-fire facility By Associated Press, 3/25/2001 14:22 BRATTLEBORO, Vt. (AP) Spooked by recent stock market drops, voters have rejected a plan to build a new $10 million fire and police station outside of town.

Brattleboro residents voted 102-37 Saturday not to assume a 30-year debt for the new building, which would have replaced a 50-year-old municipal building that has structural problems and rats.

Voters approved practically all other spending proposals Saturday during Town Meeting.

Town Manager Jerry Remillard said he wasn't surprised by the vote on the police and fire building.

''I heard people today talk about the stock market - about their retirement funds and stocks. I think the past two weeks of the stock market had a big impact,'' Remillard said.

Martha O'Connor, chairwoman of the Fire-Police Facility Study Committee, wasn't surprised by the rejection either.

''The committee will continue working. The need is there as much as it was this morning,'' she said. ''We can't put our heads in the sand. The fire and police and the community deserve better facilities.''

O'Connor said that though there were some other criticisms of the proposal, she felt it boiled down to taxes.

''This community is taxed up to its eyeballs,'' she said. The new facility would have cost the owners of a $100,000 home roughly $120 a year in taxes for 30 years.

Others who didn't mention taxes said they just wanted the police station to stay downtown - perhaps in the old fire station.

Brattleboro is also facing a vote later this year on a much larger bond issue for a new middle and high school.

Brattleboro's grand list has shrunk by $8 million in the past year because of plant closings

http://www.boston.com/dailynews/084/region/Brattleboro_rejects_police_fir:.shtml

-- Carl Jenkins (somewherepress@aol.com), March 26, 2001


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