I was talking with a friend recently who owns property in Roxbury, just up the road from Rumford. He told me that his property taxes were half what they were a year ago, and he also gets a check several times a year because of the windmills located in that town.

Rumford, on the other hand, had a group of people rally support to reject the windmills that were to locate in Rumford. Instead of a greater tax base that would help reduce property taxes, they turned down the windmills and now want to increase taxes. It has gotten so bad that the paper mill in town has threatened to close.

Without any tax increase, the Rumford tax rate is almost twice as high as the average rate in Oxford County. Taxpayers have turned down the proposed budget. Because of the loss of revenue from the town, Black Mountain Ski Resort, along with the Greater Rumford Community Center, don’t have fully needed operating dollars.

Anyone voting to reduce taxation is considered a villain.

This isn’t a personal vendetta. It is economics. You can’t have it both ways.

I would rather have a bird occasionally fly into a windmill than to have elderly folks on Social Security shiver in the cold while eating ramen noodles, trying to save money to pay their ridiculously high property taxes.

If people don’t wake up and smell the coffee, they won’t be smelling the mill. When no one has a job, who will pay the taxes?

Warren Packard, Rumford