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North Andover Citizens
Show Their True Colors
Ted Tripp
08/02/06
 North Andover Citizens Show Their
True Colors In what is now being billed as the
largest town meeting in the history of Massachusetts,
almost 3000 of North Andover’s 16,900 voters showed
up on a steamy July summer night to decide if homeowners
should pay an additional $300 per year to support the
schools. The mechanism proposed to do this was the threat
that the town would not pick up residents’ trash
unless they paid the new tax. This can only be described
as a “hostage situation.” Pay up … or
else.
The reason for this whole nightmare scenario was that the
schools wanted the $1.5 million that would be generated
by the trash tax to save teachers’ jobs and
educational programs. We also heard the additional threat
that the high school would likely lose accreditation if
the trash tax didn’t pass.
The people who showed up that night were divided into two
groups: those that came to support the schools at any
cost and vote for the trash tax, and those that had had
enough of the town’s annual efforts to raise
taxes/fees to cover its out-of-control spending. The
latter group also showed an unusual hostility to the
schools – probably aggravated by a year of negative
school publicity and widespread lack of credibility.
The July 10th special town meeting was not called by the
Board of Selectmen – though they were blamed for it
by some of the speakers – but by a group of
tax-and-spend zealots who continually think that all the
town’s problems can be solved by just throwing more
money at them. Unfortunately, it is these people who want
to force others in town to come up with the additional
money for their own needs and desires. The word “selfish”
comes to mind, all of a sudden. And the great French
philosopher Frederic Bastiat would have called the new
tax initiative nothing more than “legal plunder.”
These out-of-control tax-and-spenders were led by Middle
School PTAC member Peter Reed and a group called
Taxpayers United For the Future or TUFF. Perhaps the
acronym TUFF really stands for “Taxpayers Unable
(to) Face the Future.” The future, in this case, is
one where the great majority of citizens want North
Andover to budget within the constraints of Proposition 2
½. It’s very simple: the town should live within
its means like families do.
Reed and TUFF carefully crafted a strategy where they
thought they could get the taxpayers to cough up another
$300 per year by bringing the trash tax before a special
town meeting. They knew a Proposition 2 ½ Override would
never pass since the last two had been defeated by
margins of 2-to-1 or greater. But they also knew that far
fewer of these “No” override voters showed up
at town meetings and if all the school parents turned out
en masse, there was a very good chance they could pass
the trash tax.
Normally this would be a good political strategy. After
all, history shows us that people who show up at town
meetings do so because they want something. Usually it’s
money, but sometimes it’s land or a new public
building. History also shows us that these town meeting
participants are far from representing a cross section of
the town’s voters. As a matter of fact, they almost
always represent the opposite point of view of North
Andover’s 16,900 voters when it comes to spending
issues.
For example, at last year’s special town meeting for
a new police station, the vote was 176 to 16 in favor of
building it. It was overwhelming. However, when the issue
was put before all the voters a month later, the $7.3
million funding for it was roundly defeated 69 percent to
31 percent. In 2002, at an annual town meeting, the vote
to approve a $4 million override in the budget was so
overwhelming that a count wasn’t even taken. But
this override also failed badly at the polls. It went
down to defeat by a margin of 67 percent to 33 percent.
So a town meeting venue to get more money for the schools
would normally be good political strategy. However, this
time the tax-and-spenders badly miscalculated. They did
not understand that the “average voter” had had
enough and was angry. Angry enough to show up at a
stifling hot town meeting and express that resentment
towards the tax-and-spenders and the town in general.
Those angry voters didn’t like being dragged out of
their homes that night to sit for hours in insufferable
heat, but they came in huge numbers anyway to send a
message to the town to keep its hands off their money.
And to tell the school department to get its house in
order if it ever wants to earn their respect.
This town meeting was a special event. It was a
happening. It was a demonstration. More than anything
else, however, it showed that huge numbers of voters will
make the extra effort to attend if they think someone is
trying to pull a fast one on them. And that was the
impression they had.
So Reed and TUFF thought that they could pull a fast one
on the residents and it backfired. Badly. Now the School
Committee members (with the exception of Dr. Ormsby) and
the Finance Committee members (with the exception of
Steve Dawe) who supported these misguided efforts will
have to make do with what the Board of Selectmen and Town
Manager recommended months ago. All this aggravation
could have been avoided if these committees had shown
some leadership and sanity.
Three cheers for all those “average voters”
– many of them senior citizens - who went to great
effort to attend the historic July 10th town meeting and
send the message “We’ve had enough! We’re
fed up! No more tax increases!”
That was the night when North Andover showed its
true colors.
Ted Tripp is an International Consultant in high-tech
manufacturing methods. He has BS and MS degrees in
Chemical Engineering from MIT. You can reach him at tripp@gis.net.
*Send your questions comments to ValleyPatriot@aol.com
The August, 2006 Edition
of the Valley Patriot
The Valley Patriot is a Monthly
Publication.
All Contents (C) 2006, Valley Patriot, Inc.
We publish 9,000 newspapers and distribute in Andover,
North Andover,
Methuen, Haverhill, Chelmsford, Georgetown, Groveland,
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Lawrence, Dracut, Tewksbury, Hampton & Salisbury
Beach, and Lowell.
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