Welcome to CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN. All these wealthy land owners should be honored to fulfill their patriotic duty and pay those taxes. Everyone else needs a hand up.

Now that I think of it, this headline is pretty inflammatory and misleading. It would have been just as accurate to use "Hopkinton taxes held steady: new assessments and tax rates calculated". I guess the Monitor is more NY Post than NY Times sometimes.

It isn't the rate that's important, it's what the town budget is and what your share of it is.

Yes it will...new rates are calculated every hear. That's why the rate is always posted after the valuation.

It's a shell game.

You are all dummies, did you not understand what you read.......blah blah

Why can't the tax rate DECREASE? 21%, level, flat, the same, more, a little more, ALOT more but never less, what you mean Willis; less????????.

The assessments are down but they still value my home worth alot more than I could EVER sell it. My Company is making less money so they should raise their prices 21% to break even, it is the tax rate but not the tax bill and my assessment is down but I am paying the same as when my home was worth 100 grand more, huh, what, what, WHY?

I am confused, we are confused, you are not confused BUT just pay the darn bill. 10 years ago we had a full time Police Chief with part time Officers that did the same quality work for half the price and never once did they get the Town sued. They kept the Town safe, very safe in a Town the very same size, how did they do that???? We had Fire Chiefs elected by the members of the Fire Department and managed to put out fires, save lives and do it all for a lot less. But wait; we need the Chief to be full time to supervise all the new construction in Town, HUH??? But I thought John Pianka agreed to do this part time. Yes times have changed, now we employ a Part time Police Chief who only works when he can ride the Motorcycles and earns more than 70 grand, NOW, a full time Fire Chief at over 70 grand (in a Town that only needs a part time Police Chief, go figure) for a Town that has but only a few calls a year (Our Hopkinton Fire Chief earns per call money higher than most FD's in the nation I bet), a Farm that wants the Town to pay for but allow the Farm owners to farm the land for free and keep it undeveloped eventhough NO ONE has ever beeen interested in the land other than to farm it.

Yup, I wonder what the tax rate WOULD have been if Hopkinton cut the blubber out of their blubberous budget. Who knows, maybe an increase of NO percent????

That's right. It ain't rocket science: Assessed valuations down, mil rate up. Assessed valuations up, mil rate down.

The choice is: do you want to assemble as many actual facts as you can and apply math and logic to see what the situation is, or do you just want to cram every situation into your preconceived liberal vs. conservative vs. libertarian perspective and just start typing zingers? Shame on everyone who thought that this story was about a 21% tax increase and started ranting about Souter and Lynch and Dems and the story going national, etc. I've seen a lot of you in the health care forums, by the way, displaying a similar lack of understanding.

Luv Gov from the mouths of morons, indeed. Math is math. No one has to "convince" you that 2+2=4, or that .83 x 1.21=1.0043. It always will, even if you want to try to make this about the wealthy cosmopolitan elites of Contoocook or whatever.

Typical Love Gov Speak once again from the mouths of morons.

Just at the same moment they try to convince you only the rate is going up, not your actual total tax bill, they also tell us a "flat budget" ain't so flat after all. Why, in fact, it's got quite a pitch to it, Joe and Suzy taxpayer. First, we got the inflation adjuster over there, then we gots to have the latest and greatest in fire safety in the form of a new bloated position, and we can't let someone buy the farm over there because it would just ruin Buffy's view of the river, and we all know to sustain this "quality education" for the chil'ren we need to keep payin' the "teachers" more and more money while we make less and less.

Go figure, all this starts to add up to real money, and before you know it, a flat budget starts to look more like a double-diamond ski slope. Maybe lil' Jimmy should pull out his protractor and measure just how flat flat is in Hopkington.
- C. dog prefers the peaks on the White Mts to that of the liberal low-lands

Sounds like a purge is going on. I guess Gov Lynch and Supreme Justice Souter don't want to see guys in "wife beater" t-shirts or gals with tattoos in their quaint little town. It's funny that when Democrats are in control the little guy gets punished.

What's so unusual about this increase? I know the raise I get at work every year is at least a 21% rate increase, annually. How about everyone else? That's a typical salary increase for most here, isn't it?

I realize this is a 'tax rate' increase and not a total 'tax bill' increase, but tell you what, you guys are going to need more than seat belts. You better have front and side airbags, crash helmets, goggles and leathers donned when the flat budget hammer falls at this year's end because most regular folks in town are looking for a little relief...somewhere, anywhere, and delivering on the flat budget would have provided it for many.

I just picked upped that this is going National .. Lets see what happens now. This will put the microscope on all the Elected Town Officials. Good luck Hopkinton.

If I were a property owner in this Town, I would be outraged at the Smoke and Mirrors being used here. Something just doesn't sound right. We feel the Taxpayers of this town. You need to recall every elected person and start anew. You need to start an investigation as to the specifics as how this 21% increase was allowed to happen. Looks like the only people that will be left in town will be Doctors, Lawyers, Crooks and Mr. Souter.