Trying to stay involved in civic matters is no small feat. There are many drivers for this truth not the least of which is time. Some things move pretty fast others are shamed by a sleeping tortoise and all along … Continue reading Mansfield Moving 1
2018 saw a number of elections being held in town and in total they reaffirm a simple truth about the state of democracy in 02048. In purest form we can start with a simple by the numbers kind of thing. … Continue reading 2018 Review: Town Politics
Below you’ll see edited versions of the upcoming town Special Election Warrant. These are originals downloaded from the Town website. The only edit being the parts in RED. The red portion explains in the simplest terms the result of either … Continue reading Mansfield Special Election Warrant
Mansfield is having a Special Election on October 16 2018. The Annual Town Meeting passed a number of Articles that require a ballot vote. There are four questions on the ballot. Two require a vote due to the fact that … Continue reading No, Let’s take a stand…
One of the foundational issues for Mansfield United is the state of our democracy. MU takes the position that our democracy is flawed secondary to mechanisms that have crafted a system that no longer respects We the People in the … Continue reading Voting OS100+/Opening the File
The following is question #55 from the civics portion of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) naturalization test. There are 100 possible civics questions on the test. This is an oral test in which the applicants answer ten … Continue reading This is a Test: #55
The Annual Town Meeting is often touted as an example of the purest form of democracy seen today. The truth is Town Meeting serves as the legislative branch of Mansfield government and on May 15th 2018 there are a number … Continue reading Rolling Up Some Democracy
May 8th offers Mansfield voters the opportunity to hit the voting booth for our annual Town Election. The ballot has one contested race on it and that is for the Board of Selectman. On May 15th there is the Annual … Continue reading 2 Tuesdays in May
I found this graph very interesting: This speaks to how states and more importantly the communities within them actually get the much-needed revenue to function. Massachusetts is the sixth from the left. As you can see we depend greatly on property taxes. There are a number of take aways from this one could gather up and expand upon. I won’t go there today but I would like to point out one item. Sales tax. I’m not saying the revenues we take in at the state level through sales and use tax is insignificant but I will say it obviously falls … Continue reading How Much? Municipal Revenues Edition
