The non-resident taxpayers are getting restless.
“Part-time residents want more say in town,” headlines a recent “Cape Codder” story. “Second-home owners in Provincetown are calling for a bigger seat at the table when it comes to local government.” According to the president of the Truro NRT group at a July 5 meeting, “this is not a town of only 2000 people [the year-round population], it’s a town of all of us.”
The non-resident taxpayer movement is a relatively recent phenomenon. Until the late 1990s you didn’t hear of it even occurring to people who spend a few weeks here each year and have the bulk of their lives (kids, careers, etc.) elsewhere that they ought to have a say in running this town, too. They apparently thought of these small rural towns where they vacationed as having a local life quite separate from them, and doing fine managing their own affairs.
But that has changed dramatically. The growing demographic of second-home owners is no longer content for these towns to run themselves. (In Wellfleet second-homes comprise roughly two-third of the housing stock, meaning that two-thirds of the houses in town sit empty for two-thirds of the year.)
The pitch in favor of a larger non-resident role is the appealing-sounding one of just wanting to help out a bit in the town that they, too, love. What could be wrong with people helping out a town they love? But scratch the surface of that pitch and you quickly get to the “taxation without representation” argument. Hey, we pay more than half of the taxes. Doesn’t that earn us a little control over things?
At one level all non-residents want is a chance to be informed about local affairs. At another level, however, what they want is to be able to play a role in running things. According to the “Cape Codder” story, the Provincetown group wants “changes to the charter that would allow non-resident homeowners to serve on local boards and participate in town meetings.”
The leader of the Provincetown group says, “ These are very modest proposals, we believe. There’s no way we’re taking over the town with this….we’re just trying to participate in town government.” Modest proposals, indeed. Note the defensive “just.”
The existing and long-standing law about town meeting residency is based on a powerful and humane logic: You only get to vote in one town, the one where you’ve committed your life, have your career, raise your children. Know the weather year-round and the community fulltime.
In practical terms, you don’t want a town to be run by people not qualified by fulltime life there. When it comes to a vote, it’s not money or a house but your body that counts. Even a young renter by that logic gets to have more of a say about things than the owner of the most impressive second home.
The second home market itself has had a devastating effect on the ability of local young people to stay in their hometown; young renters may be allowed by law to vote in town meeting but they are a diminishing breed.
If in addition to fundamental changes in quality of life wrought by their money, second-home owners get to play a significant role in local government, that would be tantamount to handing over running the towns to people who don’t live here.
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