You may have heard the news that the Parks and Recreation department is asking the City to build a new, $75 million (truly $134 million) facility which would include a new skating rink, a garage, and much more.
Currently, the department operates out of a converted armory down on Main Street. According to estimates, if done exactly according to plan, the facility would add a burden of about $300 per year to people owning homes worth about $250,000. If you don’t know, $250,000 is relatively low value for a home in Bangor.
I was at the City Council meeting on March 23rd, as you can see below. I am the first speaker, though not on this subject.
If you watch the whole meeting, you’ll notice that the people who are in favor of the project have a personal interest in it. The owner of the waterfront concerts, who did not sit with the rest of us in the meeting but came in to give his piece and sat outside on his phone, said he didn’t care how much it increased his taxes. This is because it is not incumbent on him to build the thing, so like many well-to-do, he is happy to see struggling taxpayers share the burden.
One other thing you might notice is the elderly lady who testified that she had spent her life paying off her home, and now she lives on a fixed income. What is she to do if the taxes get to be more than her fixed income, or she cannot afford them? She will be forced to sell the one thing she worked her whole life for.
City Councilors must always take these things into account, and fortunately, the motion will at best be sent to the ballot in November, where the voters (taxpayers) will decide if it is a good idea or not.
Why not just an ice rink?
Now here is my perspective: we have a brand new YMCA being built on Main Street which will do a lot of what the Parks and Recreation Department does for the kids. What it will not include is an ice rink, which some testified was badly needed. While I have heard tell that the rink built in recent years in Dover-Foxcroft is largely unused by the public, I can see why people would want such a thing.
Why can we not consider just building an ice rink, for a much smaller cost, and potentially tap into community partnerships for some or all of the funding? Simply hiring out an estimate from a preferred builder and placing the entire burden on the taxpayer is not very creative, and leads to higher rents, higher mortgages, and less money that can be spent in the community. In their worst iteration, higher property taxes lead to homelessness and generational poverty.
I am pleased to see City Councilors opting to not approve such a large project at this time. If we truly want to build great things for the city, we must focus on growing our tax base — our population — and we do that by incentivizing the creation of good local jobs and lowering the barrier to being housed.
Everyone’s needs have to be considered. By everyone, I mean everyone with a stake in this city – the homeowners, the renters, the workers, and the business owners. Just because one rich guy says he doesn’t care how much his tax increases for his pet project does not mean the rest of the taxpayers should be forced to withstand a higher property tax burden in one of the highest taxed cities in the state.