Manager shouldn’t need to live in town

To the Editor:

At the Aug. 12 Bedford Town Council meeting, the council voted in a 7-0 vote to add a warrant article to the March 2016 ballot that would remove from the town charter, the town manager residency requirement. I am writing as an individual member of the town council to explain my vote and support for the article.

Requiring a town manager to live in Bedford is a substantial impediment to sourcing talent and a costly barrier to success in the hiring process. Members of the town council have contacted other communities in the state and conducted some national research concerning the residency requirement and have essentially found the policy to be a dinosaur.

Very few communities maintain such a requirement and for good reason. Most candidates are settled in their respective communities, oftentimes with family surrounding them and frequently with children attending local schools. It puts Bedford at a great competitive disadvantage versus other communities seeking the same qualified individuals. Overcoming such disadvantages bears a cost in the form of candidate sourcing costs that are born directly by tax payers. The town would also likely have to offer richer compensation packages and relocation costs to secure an adequate candidate.

The residency requirement also adds the risk that we hire a manager who either cannot find a suitable (affordable) home in the community, or cannot effect a sale at an acceptable price for the property in the community they plan to leave. The risk to the town is that after a modest period of time the new manager resigns from the position and the costly, labor-intensive cycle continues.

I have heard two general arguments against lifting the restriction. 1) "If you live off the town you should live in the town;" a slogan without merit, in my judgment, as a large number of town employees who provide critical services to the town are not required to live in the town. 2) If the town manager does not live in the town, they will not feel the pain of increased taxes or declining services. Perhaps that is the case but, again, we impose no similar requirement on any other department head or employee of the town, nor do we require any school district employee, including our superintendent, who manages a budget 150 percent larger than the town budget. The town recently hired a very qualified finance director. Were the same restriction applied in that instance we would still be looking for a qualified candidate. I can think of no instance in which the private sector applies such requirements.

As a council member I think it is important that a town manager live within a reasonable commute of the community and the town council be charged with deciding what they believe is a measure of reasonable. I welcome any responses from residents of Bedford at john.schneller2@gmail.com.

John Schneller

Bedford Town Councilor

Brick Mill Road

Overcoming economic inequality

To the Editor:

Many thanks for publishing Eldon Rash’s Letter, "Is income inequality a valid issue?" I agree that job-creating innovators who take risks should reap their just monetary reward.

However, Rash’s statement that the power to redistribute wealth results in murderous regimes, such as Stalin’s former USSR, does not apply to the USA. Here, the share of national income for the top 10 percent has reached the highest rate in this century, 50 percent, up from the stable value of only 33 percent, for the 40 years from 1942-82.

Why the large increase to the share of income for the wealthy? In 1982 the income tax rate for the rich started to drop from 70 percent to the 28 percent rate of 1988.

In Capital in the 21st Century, Prof. Thomas Piketty states that the ideal solution to wealth inequality is a progressive income tax. A return to the 70 percent wealthy-tax-rate of 1942-82 would result in less money saved in foreign banks and invested in the stock market. This would have a much lower impact on our economy than tax decreases for the middle and lower classes, who would have more to spend on food, goods, and services in the USA.

From 1942-82 there were many job-creating innovators. They invented the transistor to start the digital revolution, together with the laser and nuclear technology. We landed a man on the moon in 1969!

Paul Carr

Bedford

Historical Society appreciates support

To the Editor:

The Bedford Historical Society would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who had a part in making our Bedford Town Tour: A Self-Guided Tour of our Historic Homes, Buildings and Places a great success. We are so grateful to the homeowners who graciously opened the doors of their antique homes. We also owe a huge debt of gratitude to the local businesses including Liberty Hill Construction, Not Just Kitchens, The Norwoods Group and the Bedford Village Inn, all of whom are located in antique buildings, for not only welcoming the tourists, but for lending support in other ways.

In addition, many local groups also participated: The Craftworkers Guild who opened for the weekend and helped with our signage; the Bedford Off Broadway theater group who gave tours of the top floor of the Town Hall; The Friends of the Bedford Cemeteries who provided research on all four cemeteries; the Bedford Women’s Club who helped out with docents, and the Bedford Presbyterian Church who gave tours of their historic building. We’d also like to thank our researchers, Dan and Ellen Muller and Jon Hill, a Bedford High School student.

Last, but not least, we would like to thank all our friends and neighbors who came out to take the tour! We truly appreciate your support. It was a beautiful fall day and, we think, a good time was had by all!

Margaret Goodrich

Franki Sidore

Bedford Historical Society