[secondcurve]

Originally Posted by LIforrelaxin

So as I breezed through this thread I though about many things... First is that this is a problem which no one wants to own. Second there seems to be a lot of controversy over who should pay for the work that is needed.

As a lake shore owner, I have no problem if they want to add a fee onto my taxes to help fight the milfoil problem. I benefit from a clean unaffected lake more then anyone else. My property value stays high, and I end up keeping a nice piece of lake front property where I can walk out on the dock and see the bottom. However I need to know that this money collected can't be moved in the towns or states budget to be used for anything else. I don't support calling this a Tax... it should be a use fee... just as it is added on to the boat registration as a fee. Now how to decided on how much that fee should be that is hard to nail down... but I would think making it a fixed percentage of one property value would be the best way...a 700,000 lake front home paying say a .01 percent fee would be 70 dollars. In the grand scheme of things that is peanuts. However people need to make sure that a law like this is draft properly... As the money needs to be tied to exactly what it is collected for, and can't be shifted to anything else. It also needs to have clause to protect people from an ever increasing fee. Examples, well lets see... after the initial implementation, the fee can only be raised by a factor of X, per year, up to a maximum of Y, for the life of the program.

Once again this is an issue where we the people really need to stick up for ourselves. Sure I am willing to help fund this type of project. But the money needs to be tied up appropriately so it doesn't get re-allocated. Additionally the amount of money that I can be expected to pay needs to be capped. Are these rule out of line? I don't think so... we have yearly contribution limits on all sorts of things, medical out of pocket expenses, which will soon be governed by the government thanks to the Heath Care reform, along with this goes life time maximum clauses... People need to stop thinking of the government and the laws as untouchable... Anything is possible. People just need to put pressure on the politicians.... If enough thought is put into something there can be effective legislation, that keeps the governments hands tied, so they don't get carried away with what they are doing... But if people don't speak up, and act out, we as the American public has currently done, loose control of our government....

Very well said.