As more jobs become available at the former naval airbase and homebuilders begin planning for new subdivisions, Brunswick now finds itself at an economic crossroads. We have a real opportunity to attract more families to our town, grow the tax base and restore Brunswick’s fiscal health.

One thing we can do to ensure this brighter economic future is to vote Yes on the school bond – either on Tuesday, June 13, at the junior high or right now at our town office on Station Ave.

Families who arrive in our area to take a new job look at one factor above all the others when deciding which town to live in: the quality of our schools.

School quality dwarfs everything else — even taxes. So, at a moment like this when our state is experiencing growth, the worst thing we can do is to let our schools fall into disrepair. That’s especially true when you think of Brunswick as a town engaging in a competition for new people with other towns in our region.

Let’s say we plunk ourselves down on the state school construction aid wait list and let Coffin become unusable (we’re already not too far from that point) while we wait — likely more than a decade. Here’s what will happen: Both Coffin and the junior high fall apart, placing us in full crisis mode. School quality will get worse. Good teachers will leave out of frustration. Brunswick will start to get a reputation. Property values will go down. The tax base will shrink. The local economy will shrink. People will move out. Fewer people will pay more in property taxes and get fewer services in return. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

If that sounds like the same fiscally ruinous cycle a base closure might cause, that’s because it is, only this time it would be self-inflicted.

On top of that, we will have missed our window to act during a time of relative prosperity, leaving half a generation of kids who are already growing up here to learn in a facility that has become substandard.

That’s something we shouldn’t accept.

I realize how unsatisfying this pitch sounds to people getting by on a fixed income. We can and we must recognize the immediate strain anything school-related places on some of our seniors and other families trying to balance their books each month. We know that the property tax is a regressive tax, but, unfortunately, it is the only tool the state gives towns to raise enough revenue to fund and maintain our public school system.

People understand this problem and that we need to shift more of the state’s overall tax burden away from property tax payers. It’s a big reason why Question 2, which finally raises state education funding to the promised 55 percent, passed last November (by large margins in Brunswick).

Today, the Legislature is getting closer to voting on a new state budget for the next two years, and everyone reading this would be wise to demand that our leaders on both sides of aisle keep their promise and accept the will of the voters on education funding and also pass additional direct property tax relief.

Here at home, the Town Council and School Board took a balanced approach. They decided to bond out a new Coffin School and get on the state’s school construction aid wait list for a junior high.

They thoroughly vetted this approach over a period of multiple years and were told repeatedly that residents would end up paying even more and get a smaller return if they went with another approach. In fact, if we should be angry about anything, it’s that they didn’t rip our fiscal band-aid off sooner.

We are at a critical fork in the road here in Brunswick. We can invest in our kids and our future and finally get ourselves back on the right track, or we can slide backward, bouncing from one expensive patch up to the next.

The choice is clear. Please get out to vote on June 13. Our children are counting on us.

Dan Ankeles lives in Brunswick.