7574-R1_LGP_MechanicFalls_AnnualReport_2021_Text_4C_Web

Now that we have taken a look at the various parts of this budget, assessed the reliability of our revenues, broken down the changes in debt service and placed valuation and taxation within its historical context what do we have left? How do we resolve the difficulties we face as a community? Margaret Wheatly has said that “there is no power for change greater than a community discovering what it cares about.” So, as we gather to

begin setting priorities and making plans for our collective future, I want to ask us all to come with ideas of what changes we desire to see. I offer this budget proposal seeking, not just confirmations, but instead a sound foundation for the productive and candid deliberations still to come. In closing, I like to circle back to the musings of Wendell Berry, a great America writer, who believes “an economy genuinely local and neighborly, offers to localities a measure of security that they cannot derive from a national or a global economy controlled by people who, by principle, have no local commitment.” After investigating the various parts of our budgetary assumptions, I am as confident in our stability as I am in the commitment of our town staff to do all that is expected of them and then some to service our residents to the greatest extent possible given the means provided within this budgetary proposal. I look forward to gathering on Feb. 25 th to begin our review. All the Best,

Zachary W. Maher

52