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“They tax when you earn a dollar, they tax you when you save it, they tax you when you invest it. If you earn a dividend, they tax it again and if you are stupid enough to die, they steal up to half.”

Grover Norquist

I recently had lunch with a friend from Gorham and was shocked to hear how much he pays in property taxes. What’s even worse, he told me what a relative had to pay for impact fees in constructing a garage.

All Windham property owners will soon have a property tax increase while they continue to pay for some of the highest gasoline prices in the Greater Portland area.

The Windham town councilors have recently had discussions on increases for permit fees through the code enforcement office, and some of the increases could be significant.

I must first state that the Windham councilors are finally moving in the right direction by interviewing applicants for the Windham Comprehensive Master Plan Committee and should have appointed some to that committee last Tuesday evening, if they survive the turmoil I expect from some of the agenda items from that particular meeting. Although Windham has a master plan approved by town councilors several years ago, it was never approved by the state of Maine and is now drastically outdated. OK, I didn’t like the initial concept of such a plan because just as I expected, it was used to help some get what they wanted for construction projects while making others either impossible or, at the minimum, more expensive. Even today many contractors are complaining about the costs of doing business in Windham so I guess Windham might never receive one of Gov. LePage’s signs stating that Windham is business friendly and that’s a shame and maybe even a sham.

I never thought I would state that a well-thought-out master plan would be a good thing because Windham has a history of allowing changes to property use that many other towns would not allow. As a matter of fact, there were a couple of agenda items on last Tuesday’s council meeting dealing with such issues. One dealt with changing a piece of property from resource protection zoning to limited residential zoning. Here’s the kicker that some councilors don’t understand because under resource protection there is an allowance for a single- or two-family homes while limited residential allows for many more uses. There certainly must have been a reason for that piece of property to be zoned under resource protection, especially since it’s on Little Sebago Lake. It will be interesting to see the results of that vote by town councilors.

There was also an agenda item to approve changes to zoning where car repair and storage lots can be sited and also the length of time they can be stored. What scares me about the proposed changes is the fact it would allow a large storage area in North Windham, which I believe is near or even above the aquifer located there. I know from my military experience that vehicles that sit for a long period of time tend to develop leaks from dry rot from lack of use. Maybe a storage period of 90 days is better because the jobs would be a good thing for Windham along with a very intense storm water runoff protection plan to protect ground water.

But what I find most disgusting is that some councilors haven’t attended meetings on a regular basis or even some of their committee meetings. We don’t need part-time councilors, we need full-time councilors. It’s good to have some business people on the Town Council because of their expertise but that only comes into play if they attend the meetings and are there to help the town of Windham, not themselves as I have evidenced in the past. Windham is in a better place when all councilors attend meetings on a regular basis. If the Windham Town Meeting is so important to continue into the future, no councilor should be excused from it.

Lane Hiltunen of Windham believes it’s time for serious changes in Windham government.