CPA on the Ballot and in the Yards

The Community Preservation Act has officially been on the ballot here in Watertown for all of a week and already the town's would-be Gover Norquists are putting up yard signs against it. I can understand that some people are against every possible action the Government could take, but opposition to this seems rather short sighted to me. I've already explained why I think it's a good deal for the town, so I won't go into that much further. Proponents of the CPA had planned to run an under-the-radar campaign, but the opposition has been very vocal -- the TAB has at least two anti-CPA letters each issue and has published several anti-CPA columns. Granted, I'm not sure if anyone actually reads the TAB, so maybe it's not a big deal, but if that was your only source of local news, you would come off with the impression that the CPA is just another tax that an ever-expanding government wants to impose on us.

But that's not what's going on. What's really going on is that by enacting the CPA, Watertown can stop funding projects in other communities and, with a little investment of its own, get state funding for projects here. Of the ten towns with the highest median household income per the 2000 census, seven of them have adopted the CPA. Of the top 25, seventeen of them have also passed the act. That means money from Watertown is going to subsidize places like Weston and Carlisle which have median incomes of more than double ours. Short of repealing the CPA on the state level, which will never happen since legislators from the towns that have enacted it have a stake in making sure it stays, the only way to stop shifting money out of Watertown and into our parks, historic buildings, and open spaces is to vote Yes on the CPA in November.