Uninformed people

There seem to be some people in North Beach and Chesapeake Beach who are terribly uninformed, misinformed, or downright spreading lies when it comes to details about our new Town Hall proposal. The whole thing reminds me of a Norman Rockwell painting. The painting has rows of faces, all speaking on a telephone. The upper left corner has a woman "A" talking to woman "B" who then talks to woman "C" and so on until you get to the bottom right of the painting where a person has called woman "A" to tell her the news. It is very clear from the expression on woman "A's" face that she has never heard what is being told to her and it is all shocking news. And so it is with information about our Town Hall proposal. I have heard totally outrageous dollar amounts, with no mention of the cap above which the North Beach government refuses to go. I have heard that the building will be 5 or 6 stories tall -- not true, it is only proposed to be two stories (less than the senior building across the street). I have heard that our tax bills are going to go up $300 a year -- again, not true. We have actually already been paying money towards a new town hall for the past two years in our tax bills and the only increases were due to rising assessments by the state. This year the Mayor and Council actually lowered the tax rate! Today I heard that each Council member would have their own office! I don't know what proposed blueprint document that person was looking at because that sure wasn't on the one that I've seen (the official one put out by Town Hall). Like anything else, it is the duty of citizens to exercise their responsibilities. You have a right to vote. You have a responsibility to search out information from valid, knowledgeable, credentialed sources and make sure that you have all of the information available to you before you consider voting on anything. Your neighbor Bob or Joe or John or whoever is telling you these things had better be showing you some official documentation to back up what they are saying. Don't just take their word for it -- you don't know if they have accurate information or not. Go down to Town Hall, ask to see what's being proposed and make up your own mind. Don't let people with agendas get you all worked up and panicked over something that isn't true. Find out the facts! Go directly to the source of the information. Hopefully, we're all doing the same thing with our up-coming presidential election. It's so important and much is riding on how seriously we take our responsibilities, not just our rights! Do the research!