Bravo!

And totally agree on the Y!

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The BOS has been basically absent for this entire HUB process. Sure, some folks have needs....but others do not. If the BOS wants to be serious, they will issue a survey to every single taxpayer with results analyzed by a professional firm and including many specifics. This is absolutely needs data from every single taxpaying person....residents and non-residents. And it needs to be done before Town Meeting. Questions should include usage potential, impact on tax rates and bills, etc. etc. etc. Let's do a professional survey designed by folks who have this as their business. Enough of all this so called needs stuff that is not in the public domain. As usual, this could be another potential whim that has not been thoroughly vetted by the people responsible for running the town (BOS) and may end up being underutilized. If other towns want in, then let them share in the capital costs as well...not just the operating costs. Here's an idea...M'boro donates the land under a 99 year zero cost lease to the HUB group and they sell shares of the building to the various towns who want to buy in and use it for their residents. We already see the library with folks from other towns wanting to use our local facility as it is far better than what their town wants or has already. I believe now they have to pay. Set up a Board of Directors, make in non-profit, and enjoy! Local M'boro version of "Pay to Play" !!! Simple..... Private / public partnership....not all funded by M'boro taxpayers.

And just wait for the courts and politicians to possibly reinstate donor towns or some other scheme to fund education.....as always it is just over the horizon and M'boro will get hit VERY HARD.

I think voters tend to take that all into consideration.
We have quite a few tax exemptions that can be modified for income and net assets to allow a considerable amount of protection.

I think your earlier understanding of voter psychology is what is occurring; and should the vote yield more than 50 percent, but not the 60 percent needed for the bond... I think they will keep trying.

It is the youngest residents that opponents would need to appeal to...

Another point of view……
 

The voters who want the HUB don’t give a darn about anybody or anything, just as long as they get what they want……it’s that simple. We have watched this for over a decade, and the only changes we note are their increased determination and attitude of entitlement. Their behavior is, in many cases, reprehensible.
P.S. I should not have put everyone in favor of the HUB in the obnoxious category. There are actually some reasonable people who support it.

Does anyone else find the use of the word “Centre” in Moultonborough Community, Activity & Aquatic Centre to be pretentious to an absurd degree?

Yes…..perhaps it should be named Ye Olde Community Centre. ��
or, this might be better ….YOCC in Utopian Moultonborough Commons.
Or even Moultonborough Meadows….that has a nice ring…

Oh come on ..... is like the difference between gray and gray ......oopsie-doopsie ...... I mean gray and grey ....... not gray and gray ..... but gray and grey ........ you understand ......... so what is the difference between centre and center .....? ....... and any-who ..... Moultonborough was established in 1777 .....https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Moultonbo..._New_Hampshire so CENTRE seem highly and totally appropriate because George Washington actually slept in that corner store that's home to the museum.

You know that centre according to simple ..... https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centre .... English refers to "a sports centre is where people go to use sports facilities, such as indoor gymnasiums and indoor swimming pools and indoor therapy pool located at The Centre in Moultonborough, NH."

Is so simple, even a cave man can understand this. ...... ;)

I'm fine with the $23K spend which will get some true cost estimates put together.

Regardless of the cost to build, which is sure to be high, I'd love to see detailed estimates of what it costs to run/maintain the facility. I'm one of those 2nd home lake people up here and our primary home is in the seacoast area of NH. There are a couple of larger cities - Dover and Portsmouth, with indoor pools that could probably provide some idea of what those expenses are vs. the revenue they produce. I found a presentation here on the Dover pool showing indoor pool costs of $607K with revenue of $150K. Not exactly a breakeven proposition. Similarly, the Portsmouth budget presentation found here shows a cost to run it of $596K with revenue of $446K. Both of those pools get revenue from not only the patrons using the pools (which I'm pretty sure draw from a larger population area than Moultonborough) but also from local swim teams which as of now are pretty limited up here. (Side note as a swim parent - those swim team fees ain't cheap.) If you assume the Dover deficit is closer to what it would cost that's $450K added to your yearly town budget which is around $.10 or $.11 per thousand. That obviously doesn't account for whatever bond repayment you'd have to do on the $15M-$20M cost to build the center.

I guess this is a long way of saying it would be interesting to see two proposals, one with an aquatic aspect and one without both from a build and ongoing cost basis. While I'm not saying everyone would jump on board supporting a community center with some indoor courts I do think that would have more support given the likely much smaller costs involved. I could be wrong but the pool aspect of this has to drive a decent portion of the build cost.

FLL – I usually ignore your rants but this time I think you should go back and look into your cave for the dictionary. “Oh come on ..... is like the difference between gray and gray, centre and center ..... Moultonborough was established in 1777”

I will readily agree that there is no difference between “gray” and “gray” since they have the SAME spelling. Could it possibly be that you mean one of those words to be “grey”?

If so, then in your research you must have seen statements that both “Centre” and “grey” are British English spellings of the words “Center” and “gray”, although I do think that grey is far less pretentious than “Centre”.
It is the use of the British English word that I find to be so pretentious.
Oh and by the way, you should not have put the reference to Simple Wiki in quotes since you fabricated the quote.

If this pretentious boondoggle were ever to be built in Moultonborough I would be advocating for something like an FLL Tax – a large per user per hour fee for non-residents, especially those from Meredith, to be credited directly to the tax bills of property owners in Moultonborough. :)

Curious...
 

I have no dog in this fight but am just curious as to why a town located on the shores of the largest freshwater lake in NH and already has a beautiful town beach, needs a swimming pool??

Dan

I would imagine the argument is that the lake is truly good for swimming 1/3 of the year. I can understand that one more than my next door neighbor who is here only in the Summer but has an inground pool. :confused:

The proposal will be for TWO pools, not one……and any comparison between Moultonborough and Portsmouth is ludicrous….our population simply doesn’t support such an endeavor.

I'm well aware of the differences between those two locations. The Moultonborough population doesn't exactly support the Taj Mahal Fire/Police building and various apparatus housed there but that didn't stop them.

Dover has a 6 lane 25 yard pool coupled with a secondary pool/dive well so roughly the equivalent to the hub proposal when you talk about cost to heat/maintain. I think $600K operating costs is a decent starting point for an estimate. I have no idea what they'd have to do for fees to make a dent in that cost nor do I have any idea what the membership numbers would look like. Portsmouth is $25/month resident adult, $45/month non-resident. Dover does a $170/year resident adult, $330/year non-resident.

Operating costs?
 

There are several schools/colleges with pools and grand athletic facilities that can be used for cost comparisons, both building and operating costs. Paying $23K for somebody to develop similar figures is a waste of (taxpayer) $$.
If Moultonborough was founded in 1777, then the 250th Anniversary plans should be getting underway soon. Most towns have a small operating surplus at the end of the year, and Town Meeting votes as to what to do with that $$. Usually, the vote is to reduce taxes, but you could also vote to establish a capital reserve fund to build a recreation facility.
Of course, if such a facility were reasonably financially viable, many towns would have one, not just colleges and prep schools. (Watch and see what the colleges build when students start getting $10,000 loan forgiveness and tuition skyrockets.)

Maintenance costs? Really?
 

I tried to respond to neckdweller awhile ago, but got knocked offline….maybe there’s a message there! Anyhow, those pushing the HUB have no interest in worrying themselves about maintenance costs. Nor are they worrying about user fees, memberships, and all that mundane stuff that should be part of the plan. I guess that’s one of the requirements for membership in the “Entitlement Club”….having the taxpayers willingly open their wallets for everything…..sort of an offshoot of college loan forgiveness. Anyhow, my mind travels to a future decade, and I look askance at the piles of timber, broken bricks, and other debris where the Community Centre of Moultonborough used to stand, a place we just had to have, but once the magic and glitter wore off and people got bored, it began a journey into obsolescence. Does that sound overly dramatic? Perhaps, but I can visualize something similar happening…..and the costs will continue. The loan must be paid.

I believe that the $23k is coming from the established capital reserve fund.

Aren't those funds used to keep bond prices down?

Not really.

Think of it like setting a little aside every year to purchase a new vehicle instead of waiting till you need one and then financing the whole thing.

With the CRF you are paying ahead and earning interest (but usually losing to inflation), with a bond you are borrowing then repaying with devalued dollars.

Usually enough CRF gets used with the bonding to make the payment seem much lower.

Just various groups have realized that the CRF is a lower voting threshold than the bonding; so it has become much more popular.

interesting you never see an advocate of the HUB post . I guess best to stay out of the limelight

I think the last vote had less than 100 in support.... so they may not even have someone on the forum.

:laugh::laugh:And especially if our local jokester writes it!!

John I would be shocked if they didn't monitor this site

They might... but would it add value to their strategy?

I would guess few of the people on the forum are residents of Moultonborough, and even fewer are young enough to be in it for the long haul.

They have to convince that younger group that this type of recreation has merit.

That may be harder than they think, but it is the only strategy they have.
This forum probably doesn't have a strong target audience when that subset is the focus.

A quick search of the Forum members identified 99 who said they were from Moultonborough or included Moultonborough in their member name. That is certainly a small percentage of the total Forum membership, but I suspect it includes some on both sides of the issue. 99 is also a very small percentage of the residents of Moultonborough, so the issue might still find majority support in Moultonborough at some point.

Yeah, but how many—like me—don't have locations filled out? I think there's quite a few Moultonborough peeps here.

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Residents that are Millennials.

You can move Boomers with senior tax exemption changes written into the article tied to the HUB, but that creates a problem for the younger voters. GenX... we don't have the numbers worth targeting. So Millennial residents need to be convinced of the value... not always an easy thing.

No Vision Requirement, Either...
 

:offtopic:

For the same reason that sailing, canoeing, and rowing have lost their respective lusters.

We're getting beat up.

Maybe we need to start letting the people that want all these goodies pay for them!!

I do not dispute this point, but my perspective is that although the people commenting on the issue on the Forum are mostly negative, there are many more out there who are entitled to vote and might vote for it at some point even though they have not expressed support on the Forum. Negative comments on the Forum do not, and should not, preclude supporters from pursuing what they view as a worthwhile project for Moultonborough and campaigning for it in whatever manner they deem appropriate.

Define ''goodie''.
Recreation is always an extra... and mostly collectivized.

Lake Winnipesaukee is owned by all the residents of NH, but Moultonborough residents benefit from it more than say Franklin residents... how would we make that fair to Franklin residents?

Imagine that the lakes went non-motorized, or worse, what effect would that have on Moultonborough?

Life is never ''fair''.

But people on the lake certainly pay more taxes than most of those in Franklin! We choose to live on the lake and know we will pay more taxes. If you vote for the wants of a town, not needs, maybe those who vote for them should pay more. Seems fair to me.

Way too slippery a slope there, tis—by that same rationale, people without kids in the schools shouldn't have to pay taxes for schools.

While I agree there's a line between "necessary" services like water, safety, and education and "goodies" like recreation centers, that line is supposed to be defined (by an honest process) by the citizens in the town.

I don't think there's any question that the HUB would be cool to have in town; the question is whether the process is honest, and if it's fair to taxpayers/worth the overall cost to the overall constituency.

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I think they should help me out with my taxes on my lakefront property? Why should I pay so much? (tongue in cheek of course)

Clear water year round?

But the property owners/residents of Franklin that also own the lake do not make out the way that Moultonborough residents do... you don't transfer those taxes to Franklin.

But using the lake is using their property.

The”donor” towns pay a lot to Franklin for schools since you’re using Franklin.

There is no such thing currently as a donor town.
There is a group looking to recreate the donor towns.

https://newhampshirebulletin.com/202...ding-solution/

Technically no, but we the richer towns still pay a lot more toward state education than the poorer towns. That's why I put the word donor in quotes.

Doesn't work that way.

The money raised by the SWEPT is kept in Moultonborough and used to offset what would be listed as the local school tax rate.

None if it ever goes to the State... it all stays local.

https://www.nhbr.com/new-school-fund...ax-inequality/


https://www.moultonboroughnh.gov/sit..._history_0.pdf


https://indepthnh.org/2022/06/28/new...unding-system/


https://www.seacoastonline.com/story...s/10059076002/