Another Citizen Filled Town Council Meeting For Lisbon

Lisbon tax trouble, assessor fired
After a heated debate over a double digit increase in property taxes in Lisbon, the town assessor has been fired.
The town says it is now looking into any possible errors that could have increased taxes - while tax payers look for answers.
Frustration was high again in Lisbon.
The council told dozens of angry townspeople it is illegal to change the budget, at this point, in order to change taxes.
It did however vote to eliminate any interest or penalties they pay on their taxes.

Read and Watch more here-->>

Perhaps the most significant vote in Lisbon's history occurred.  And that was a unanimous vote to suspend penalties and interest for NOT PAYING YOUR TAXES.    Councilor Cote  made the motion, based on the issues of topic.  Thank you Mr. Cote,  YOU ARE the ONLY Councilor that GETS IT. 

Assessor Dow is fired and a new one already hired. ???  
{Sniff, Sniff, Sniff}
Hound Dog says, HANG ON!

Another poll was taken regarding the Town Budget.  Mr. Cote also asked the packed, standing in the hallway crowd, "if they would like to vote on the town budget as they do with the school budget".  A Unanimous show of hands from Everyone went in the air clearly indicating to other councilors that YES, they do.   

But then Councilor "re-elect-me" Mason says, "well there you go, you know how to do it, papers have to taken out and a petition has to be done by the people"...  NO IT DOES NOT.   

The Town Councilors can do this by a vote and a change to the wording in the charter.  This has been suggested many times previous to this gathering all to fall on deaf councilor ears. (for those interested, check the archives here on The Lisbon Reporter)

  Funny thing is the councilors didn't have a hard time making changes to the Lisbon Charter that allowed Mike Bowie to again and again be able to chair the meetings.  And what about all the other changes that have occurred recently.

 No Councilor Mason you unfortunately DON"T GET IT.

The word RECALL permeated the chatter amongst residents again last night.  And for good reason that will be explained.  Recalls are based on the number of voters during the last election for Governor.  IF a recall is not done before the November elections this year, the numbers for the petitions signatures that need to be gathered will likely change and based upon current issues will be significantly greater. 

Any stalling at this point will just put a damper on the process and likely result in too high of a hurdle to get over.  Not saying it can't be done, but why wait.

Editorial Staff