So, many of us in Woodstock Village received a wordy flier in our mailboxes beseeching us to contribute to a total of $6,000 to make sure hanging flower baskets are paid for and adorning our Village. We love those flowers, they’re very nice, we appreciate those who put them up and keep them healthy.
However. This flier came from the Woodstock Village Business Alliance which seems to be proud of NOT asking the Town (Or Village) to pay for this beautification project and wants to impose the responsibility on residents.
Hello? Woodstock Early Bird’s question is simple: WHY SHOULDN’T THIS PROJECT BE PAID FOR BY THE VILLAGE?
WHY ARE YOU NOT EVEN ASKING?
If the Woodstock Village Trustees, the Woodstock Inn and the Woodstock Village Business Alliance are all in agreement that we need to maintain our “reputation” as a “beautiful and quaint place to live” and, in order to further apparent efforts at making Woodstock: the Wedding Tourism Capital of New England, then it should precisely be a priority to spend public monies for aesthetic enhancements, spend our taxpayer funds on this kind of project.
We have already paid our taxes, which are getting to be so high as to be “non-sustainable”, why should we now be asked to supplement our funding of this rather large civic enhancement? 
We have heard from at least one Early Bird who also was not amused and rather put off by what they believed is a rather outrageous request from the Village Business Alliance. They said they would love to contribute to the cost of the baskets except they’re short of funds from spending hundreds of dollars paying a contractor to clear the PUBLIC sidewalk in front of their house all winter long, year after year.
Here’s an idea that comes from this evening’s very Village Trustees Meeting:
Tonight Trustees approved buying a $6500 storage locker from funds apparently gained from the recent sale of a dump truck. Had someone only been there to say, “Hey, wait a minute, that’s just the amount we need to pay for the hanging flower baskets!” “How perfect is that? Problem solved!”
Oh, there was someone there from the Village Business Alliance. And from the Woodstock Inn. Nobody spoke a peep!
C’mon Woodstock. Put your money where your mouth is. If you want this to be a consistently inviting place, as we all want it to be, use our already high tax dollars to keep the Village consistently maintained and aesthetically pleasing: Flowers in the summer, consistently plowed roads and sidewalks in the winter. All of that indicates a place that uses its taxes well and CARES.
Don’t get us wrong, we LOVE FLOWERS! We love that Village Businesses make the effort to get the basket UP.
But, don’t do it on the backs of those (taxpaying residents) who are already making extra contributions for enhancement of PUBLIC SPACES. As we have said in the past: That dog don’t hunt.
Julia Carlisle
Woodstock Early Bird 