Centennial Beach Project
Please Support the Centennial Beach Project
The beach is one of the town’s best assets and has for too long been an under-appreciated and under-utilized resource.
This is our opportunity to improve it. A “yes” vote at Town Meeting won’t cost you a cent in new taxes, but you’ll reap all the benefits of this transformative enhancement.
At the upcoming Town Meeting on May 6th, we have the opportunity to dramatically improve Centennial Beach. The Hudson Land Trust fully supports this effort.
As you may know, the facilities at the beach are showing their age and in desperate need of repair. Further, natural erosion has damaged the beach and we need to better manage runoff. The tab for this rehabilitation effort is $1.75 million dollars.
The good news – unlike most everything else we spend money on, this one is truly tax neutral. Let me explain.
More about the project, here.
Funding the Project
This project will be funded with Community Preservation Funds (“CPF”). This is the money that comes from the 1% surcharge on your tax bill. In 2007, under the Community Preservation Act, Hudson enacted this surcharge. Over the years (as of 2017) it has raised about $3.4M from residents and we have received about $1.3M in matching funds from the state. These funds are designated for use toward historic preservation, affordable housing, open space, and recreation projects – that’s it. These funds are separate from the general fund, thus these dollars are not in competition with the school budget, funds for road paving, or any of the other operating functions of the town.
In recent years, Hudson has used these funds to preserve downtown buildings, acquire land for recreation and conservation and recreation, among other projects.
We don’t have $1.75M in Community Preservation Funds on hand. So, with an opportunity like this before us, the articles on the Town Meeting warrant suggest funding it as follows:
Article 26: Spend $250,000 of CPF on hand.
Article 27: Borrow the remaining $1.5M.
No New Tax
Importantly, unlike building a new school or police station, repaying this bond will NOT raise property taxes. The question at hand is whether to commit to diverting a portion of these segregated CPF to repay the bond.
Please Support These Warrant Articles
We hope you’ll join us in supporting this measure. Please ask your friends and neighbors to do the same.
Please contact us with questions. See you at Town Meeting!
Thank you for your support.
