We’re drifting towards fiscal failure.
That’s according to Amesbury Mayor Thatcher Kezer who made the comment at the start of a meeting Monday between Merrimack Valley mayors and the Eagle-Tribune’s editorial board.
The municipal chief executives want two things — more money and the tools with which to better manage their cities.
Unfortunately for them, voters are already feeling over-taxed and legislators say they have no more money to give them.
And if by “tools” the mayors mean laws giving them greater flexibility in dealing with the municipal unions, good luck to them.
Despite plenty of evidence to the contrary, lawmakers still feel the municipal unions hold great sway in local elections and thus are loathe to take them on.
Go back several years in any North of Boston community, and one would be hard-pressed to find a mayoral election in which the candidate backed by the unions emerged a winner. Voters are smart enough to realize that those endorsements don’t come without an expectation of a more lucrative contract somewhere down the line | the cost of which will translate into higher property taxes.
Yet all evidence to the contrary legislators continue to live in fear of those same unions. It’s easy to say yes when the unions coming knocking on your door; especially when someone else — the mayors mostly — who will have to find a way to pay for the Legislature’s largess.
Sadly, the fiscal crisis of which Kezer and his colleagues warn won’t be addressed until those on Beacon Hill learn to fear municipal officials and the taxpayers more than they do the unions.
