01/09/2004: 
Arcanum
Killington, NH?
from Burlington (VT) Free Press & Manchester (NH) Union Leader
Burlington (VT) Free Press
A plot is afoot in the central Vermont resort town to abandon Vermont and become part of New Hampshire.
Low-tax New Hampshire would never abuse the town through taxation the way Vermont does, said Killington Town Manager David Lewis.
Like many recent taxation fights in Vermont, the Killington imbroglio has to do with Act 60, Vermont's education funding law...
"It kind of reminds us of Colonial days," Lewis said. "The Colonies were being faced with the Stamp Act, the Tea Act, the Sugar Act. England wasn't giving them any rights. They were treating the Colonies as just a revenue source."
With no tax relief from Vermont's executive, judicial and legislative branches in sight, Lewis said the only option is to leave.
Killington, population 1,095, has roots in New Hampshire. "The town was originally chartered by New Hampshire in 1761," Lewis said.
There are a few matters to arrange before Killington residents can start affixing "Live Free or Die" license plates to their cars.
The town's Selectboard has to go along with the idea. The panel likely will decide by the end of January whether t to put the resolution on the ballot, Lewis said. Then the town would try to persuade Killington residents to join New Hampshire. A vote is planned March 2.
Originally, the area now known as Vermont was actually controlled by the British colonial governor of New York. The boundary between New Hampshire and New York was a bit fuzzy, so the governor of New Hampshire took advantage of the confusion and started selling land grants to land that wasn't really his, making a tidy profit and then taking off. A few years later, after the settlers, mostly from Connecticut and Massachusetts, were informed by the governor of New York that they didnt really own the rough, tree strewn land that they had cleared by hand, and that New York was going to take it back. Enter Ethan Allen, who played Britain, New Hampshire, Vermont, and the new Continental Congress off each other in such a way that Vermont actually annexed part of New York for a while. Ethan Allen equaled Aaron Burr in the "American Badass" department. He was imprisoned by the British for a time during the revolutionary war, and the soldiers kept a picture of George Washington in the head, that being the appropriate place for an American general. But Allen said it was because the British soldiers were constipated, and Washington scared the sh*t out of them. I highly recommend Revolutionary Outlaws by Michael Bellesiles, even though he's been accused of being looser with the facts than Michael Moore.
More
Killington, N.H?By Matt Sutkoski
Free Press Staff Writer
Welcome to Killington, N.H.
A plot is afoot in the central Vermont resort town to abandon Vermont and become part of New Hampshire.
Low-tax New Hampshire would never abuse the town through taxation the way Vermont does, said Killington Town Manager David Lewis.
Like many recent taxation fights in Vermont, the Killington imbroglio has to do with Act 60, Vermont's education funding law.
In October, the Vermont Supreme Court upheld the statewide property tax under Act 60 as it applied to Killington.
Killington said the tax arrangement is unfair. The town, with its resort properties, hotels, restaurants and inns, sends $20 million or so in property, sales, meals and rooms taxes to the state and receives little in return, Lewis said. Act 60 worsened the disparity, he said.
Vermont Secretary of State Deborah Markowitz said Killington's chances of leaving Vermont are remote. "It's really a symbolic move," she said of Killington's plans.
The state creates towns, and leaves communities no way to independently move or dissolve. "There's no avenues for secession," Markowitz said.
"It kind of reminds us of Colonial days," Lewis said. "The Colonies were being faced with the Stamp Act, the Tea Act, the Sugar Act. England wasn't giving them any rights. They were treating the Colonies as just a revenue source."
With no tax relief from Vermont's executive, judicial and legislative branches in sight, Lewis said the only option is to leave.
Killington, population 1,095, has roots in New Hampshire. "The town was originally chartered by New Hampshire in 1761," Lewis said.
Leaving Vermont
There are a few matters to arrange before Killington residents can start affixing "Live Free or Die" license plates to their cars.
The town's Selectboard has to go along with the idea. The panel likely will decide by the end of January whether t to put the resolution on the ballot, Lewis said. Then the town would try to persuade Killington residents to join New Hampshire. A vote is planned March 2.
Residents are skeptical. "Come on, that's crazy talk," said Steven Kelly of Killington when told of the secession plan.
"With me working in retail, I wouldn't have to charge anybody tax," Kelly said, "but I'd have to say I live in New Hampshire. What's up with that? I love having a Vermont address. I'm proud of it. It's a cool place to live."
If voters approve, Killington would petition New Hampshire for admittance. People in New Hampshire government were a bit nonplused by Killington's idea.
"I don't know how to react to that. I would be flattered if they'd want to join New Hampshire," said David Scanlan, the deputy New Hampshire secretary of state.
Scanlan said there are practical issues, such as the fact Killington is about 25 miles from the New Hampshire border.
Lewis said that's not a problem, because some states have sections that are not contiguous.
If New Hampshire ultimately welcomes Killington, the Vermont Legislature must be willing to let the town go.
Lewis said he anticipates the Legislature will reject Killlington's plans. That's where Congress or the U.S. Supreme Court would come in, he said.
History
Killington's bid to leave Vermont is a reversal of sorts, said Vermont State Archivist Gregory Sanford. In 1781 about 35 New Hampshire towns joined Vermont, which wasn't a state at that time.
The towns were in the Connecticut River valley and joined Vermont because they felt isolated from the seat of New Hampshire government, in the seacoast community of Portsmouth, Sanford said.
The towns quickly rejoined New Hampshire because the Granite State objected to the secession. So did the fledgling U.S. government and the Allen and Chittenden families in western Vermont, who feared their power would be diluted, Sanford said.
The Supreme Court decision overturned an earlier ruling by a Superior Court judge that said the Act 60 funding that affected Killington was "arbitrary and capricious."
Killington resident Jonathan Celauro said a secession would have one unique effect, creating an island of New Hampshire in Vermont. "It would be like going to Rome when you're in Vatican City," Celauro said.
http://www.theunionleader.com/articles_showa.html?article=31306
Vt. ski resort may 'rejoin' Granite State
By STEPHEN SEITZ
Union Leader Correspondent
KILLINGTON, Vt. - New Hampshire might find itself with another ski resort if the voters of Killington are angry enough.
Frustrated by what selectmen consider an unfair property tax burden for education - and a cold shoulder from the state in response to complaints - the town has added an article to the town meeting warrant asking if voters want to leave Vermont and become a New Hampshire town instead.
Town meeting in Killington is in March.
"We call it a rejoining," Killington Town Manager David Lewis said yesterday. "We feel it has merit."
"Wheras, the Town believes that, in light of the injustices visited upon it, the public good of the Town and its inhabitants would be best served if the Town were again to become a part of the State of New Hampshire," the warrant article reads in part.
"They're just trying to make a point," Vermont Secretary of State Deborah Markowitz said. "There's no way in law that they could secede."
David Scanlon, New Hampshire deputy secretary of state for elections, said the Killington proposal was "flattering."
"If they vote that way, we'd like to welcome them aboard," he said, "but there would be logistical issues. There are certain realities that would have to be faced. Practically speaking, it won't happen."
New Hampshire Gov. Craig Benson was out of the state yesterday, but press secretary Wendell Packard said there was no comment.
"We'll wait and see how the vote comes out," he said.
Killington's difficulties may sound familiar to New Hampshire residents. The dispute is over a statewide tax to fund education.
A small town in the center of Vermont with a population of about a thousand, Killington generates about $10 million a year for the state in rooms, meals, alcohol and real estate taxes, Lewis said, and another $10 million for the statewide property tax that helps to fund education in Vermont.
"But we only get back one or two million from the state in education benefits," said Lewis.
The town has been wrestling with the state on education funding since 1997, when Act 60 was enacted in response to a state Supreme Court decision requiring that the same amount of money be spent on educating each student, regardless of a town's property wealth.
Wealthy communities paid more money into what was derisively called the "shark pool" in order to equalize spending with less well-off communities. Killington successfully sued the state on its assessment system in 2002, winning a ruling from a judge that called the state's methodology "unreliable."
"Mathematical exactitude is not required; equity and fairness are," wrote Superior Court Judge William D. Cohen.
The state appealed to the state Supreme Court, which overturned the Superior Court decision last October. Lewis said this was the last straw.
"That put the nail in the coffin," he said. "Our voice is not being heard in Montpelier. So we looked at what the Colonists did when their representatives weren't listening to them. We can't form a new country, but we were initially created out of the state of New Hampshire. We were a community made in 1761."
Until 1777, when Vermont established an independent republic, the state was part of New Hampshire.
The town is basing its case on several clauses in the Vermont Constitution: in Ch. 1, Art. 9, governing taxation, the constitution states, "previous to any law being made to raise a tax, the purpose for which it is to be raised ought to appear evident to the Legislature to be of more service to community than the money would be if not collected."
In Article 7, it states "that the community hath an indubitable, unalienable, and indefeasible right, to reform or alter government, in such manner as shall be, by that community, judged most conducive to the public weal."
Markowitz said the central question in the Killington suit had been addressed by the Legislature, when Act 68 supplanted Act 60.
"That eliminated the sharing pool," she said. "The tax is now more income-based."
Lewis said the town was going ahead full steam, including hiring consultants to produce an economic analysis of the consequences of joining New Hampshire. Even if there were no difference in the tax burden, he said, there would still be reasons to leave Vermont.
"It's possible it won't be much better," he said, "but even if it isn't, there is still the issue of justice. Beyond the economics of it, if the town were part of New Hampshire, it would open up opportunities. There's no sales or income tax, so it would enhance economic development. But primarily, we're concerned about the justice issue."
Markowitz said the town has no legal standing to make this case.
"The towns exist at the pleasure of the Legislature," she said. "The Legislature can refuse to take up the case, or say no, whatever it wants to do."
