So four years ago when the town ripped off the state's design logo for signage (that Mass charges $1,200 annually per location) Hickory Ridge Golf Course was paying for this sign in South Amherst, but Cherry Hill in North Amherst got theirs for free (two of them).
May sound like a minor competitive advantage, but another major one is Hickory Ridge pays the town over $17,000 annually in property taxes while Cherry Hill pays zero. Even the 9-hole Amherst Golf Course, owed by tax-exempt Amherst College pays over $7,000 annually in property taxes.
Just another hidden cost of our municipal white elephant.
16 comments:
Hey Larry, where did you get that information on the signs? I've heard numbers ranging from a $300 one time cost to install the sign and that's it to your claim of $1200 per year per sign. I just want to know what's accurate.
Thanks, Tom
and the kids that leave Amherst public schools to attend charter schools lose us $10K/student and if we take school choice kids into public schools we get $5K/student.
All depends on who gets what out of the public coffers doesn't it.
What expenses you are talking about? They don't pay for the sign you say, so that's not an expense. They don't pay taxes. Well, duh, the town owns it so it doesn't pay taxes to itself. Town Hall and the Police Station don't pay taxes either.
Well Thomas, I have a two gig harddrive in the back of my head and I just remember that Gov Romney (those damn Republicans) thought the one time $1,200 was not enough considering the exposure, so he signed legislation to make it an annual fee.
Yes, Anon 11:13 losing kids to Charter Schools (most notably Pioneer Valley Performing Arts and now of course that damn Pioneer Valley Chinese Immersion Charter School) costs the venerable Amherst schools the exact amount tax support cost of education per child.
And in the case of Amherst since they have such a HIGH average cost it actually reroutes about $14,000 per kid.
So improve the Amherst public school offerings in performance art and Chinese and maybe they would lose less.
And last I looked education was a tad more of a priority than, say, golf.
Anon 11:33
The Cherry Hill Golf Course spent the vast majority of its miserable municipal existence as an Enterprise Fund--so it was actually assessed a property tax (not that they ever paid it.)
Three or four years ago the town decided that the Golf Course could never break even (especially considering the expensive Capital items like all that heavy equipment required to run a golf business) and nixed the Enterprise Fund and just rolled it into the Leisure Services empire where lots of costs could be hidden.
I'd rather play at Cherry Hill than at that snooty Hickory Ridge any day.
Well of course, especially since the taxpayers of Amherst are picking up some of the costs (and you are probably not even an Amherst taxpayer)
these signs cost $17,000 a year, another municipal white elephant. What's more source? Larrey Kelly of course.
Well, since the town is starting to get a tiny bet better about transparency you can go to the assessors page on the town website and look up what Hickory Ridge Golf Course or Amherst Golf Course pays in taxes each year. Nitwit
White on blue. How original. Does the state hold a trademark on that?
What's next, Larry, complaining about stop signs?
Yeah, actually if a pizza joint on University Drive suddenly erected their own Stop Sign with the official white on red octogan, I would complain.
Someone should erect a red octogon here....
Yeah that would be called CENSORSHIP, and I'm sure you would dance an Irish Jig if somebody did.
Um, people put up stop signs on private ways all the time. Ever heard of a parking lot? There's no law against it.
Um, University Drive is not a private way. Neither is this blog.
Wow...that's steep. But thanks for letting me know, appreciate it.
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