Portsmouth City Council defeats 'anti-pledge' resolution

Monday night the Portsmouth City Council held a public hearing to see if the residents would vote for a city resolution to do away with the "pledge".

The "anti-Pledge" resolution was sponsored by Portsmouth State Representative Laura Pantelakos.

The Pledge is the traditional promise taken by candidates to reject the institution of a sales, income, or other broadbased tax in the State of NH. It is coordinated each election year by the Coalition of NH Taxpayers, a local NH taxpayer advocacy group that aids taxpayers with local government issues.

In remarks he made to the Portsmouth City Council before the vote, Bill St. Laurent, President of The Association of Portsmouth Taxpayers said,
"If you vote yes tonight for this resolution you are telling the rest of the state that the residents of Portsmouth oppose the Pledge, which may or may not be the feelings of the residents of Portsmouth."

"If we are going to decide whether we should or should not have a broadbased tax , let the voters decide this issue at the polls, not some town or city elected officials that want to put a gag order on state residents running for office" he added.

Despite the efforts of a well-funded out-of-state group calling itself the 'Granite State Fair Tax Coalition' which tried to get voters at various town meetings to reject the Pledge, voters instead rejected town and school spending in record amounts. Additionally, record numbers of candidates have taken and are still taking the Pledge, which they can do right up until November 4th.

In addition, since then, two new anti-tax groups have formed, one of which has spearheaded an effort to place a spending-and-tax cap on the ballots of certain cities and some towns that follow the charter form of government.

On Monday, residents in the City of Rochester were the first to hand in more than double the required amount of signatures necessary to place the question of a tax cap on the ballot.

For more information see http://www.cnht.org/