Commercial Free Schools
There a new group called Citizens for Commercial-Free Schools (CCFS)which is a group of Burlington parents and community members working since Spring 2005 to remove corporate and military advertising from our public schools.
Campaign begins
Today, Heavenly and I met with Alan Sousie who ran the last two years here in ward 7. He has volunteered to help our campaign and we discussed various issues with him as well as some campaign strategy. We determined that we must get started as soon as possible, starting with getting the paperwork from the city clerk’s office for getting us on the ballot.
76-78 Cherry Street
One of the major topics discussed at the last city council meeting was the 76-78 Cherry Street building which is owned by the Catholic diocese. The Catholic diocese decided they wanted the building to be torn down so they could do something else with the property. However, councilor’s Shannon, Montrell and Perry along with Preservation Burlington wanted to not allow the Catholic Diocese the permit to take down their own building because they believe it has some historic and architectural value.
Resolution regarding property tax burden facing Burlington residents
Coucilors Bushor and Fiermonte introduced a resolution to help with the heavy property tax burden facing Burlington residents. The resolution states that the current procedure that pays much of education costs statewide is “convoluted and not well understood by taxpayers” and asks that the city’s representatives to that state Legislature work to revise the property tax system.
Resolutions to lower the cost to the city of the retirement system for city employees
The Board of Finance proposed a resolution to lower the cost to the city of the retirement system for city employees. The resolution, noting that city contributions to the retirement fund jumped from about $1.5 million in fiscal year 2002 to $4.6 million this year and are “still not sufficient to meet the actuarially projected future costs.”