Town secession
Only in New England would a town want to secede from its state and join New Hampshire, even though it's in the middle of Vermont. Yes, it's true. The Vermont town of Killington -- population: 1,000 -- wants to become part of the state that's 25 miles away and bears the motto, "Live free or die." The townspeople argue that their tourism and taxes give the state $10 million annually, but that they only get about $1 million back for things like schools.I thought it was ridiculous until I read this quote by Vermont's secretary of state: "Absent an armed insurrection type of thing, there isn't anything a town can do to secede. A town is a construction of the state and exists at the pleasure of the Legislature."
Yeah, that's enough snootiness to make me want to flee the state. That, and the fact that New Hampshire has one of the lowest tax rates in the nation. (Visiting the state for three weeks wouldn't make me at all biased, would it?)
Posted by Layla at 8:44 AM, March 03, 2004
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