Here in Middletown the police have some sort of call system with which they can call every house to relay emergency information.

I hope the if Tiverton has the same thing it isn't being utilized (misused) to phone bank for the Superintendent.

Check caller ID too. When Amy Rice was first running our house received a phone call; when I didn't pick up (I always use the answering machine to screen calls to avoid telemarketers) it left a recorded message flacking for her. I did look at the caller ID before the message kicked on: "NEARI."

Wouldn't be surprised if it is also providing the calls that you got.

School and union officials in Lincoln recently made the same claims, suggesting significant cuts would be proposed at the FTM. Instead, an additional half million more than what the school committee agreed to was proposed, debated, and approved. There weren't even conditions on how the money should be spent. But I bet the union will be thinking about that money when it negotiates a contract this summer.

Please stop referring to water department issues in the same breath as issues that are controlled by the town financial meeting. The two fire districts operate independent of the "town", and have their own state enabling legislation. If you want to do some real investigative journalism, try to find out how your water bill money is being spent, and who oversees the till.
As for the future education of your children, I am glad that you can afford private school. I cannot. I suspect that the loss of trash pickup will cost you more than the cost of one garbage can, and you haven't seen poor roads yet! As for sewer service, you will likely never get it, as it is obvious that bonding is dead in this town. What you should be thinking about it the value of your home, and how it will be affected by a loss of services. This is the true cost/benefit balance. How sellable is a home in a town with no services, no recreation, a gutted library system and an underperforming school department? Not very, unless your buyer has no children, no sense of community and a cozy winter home in Florida.

Apologies, "Not as": I was merely listing all of the services that I could think of that the town provides. If some of them are not included in proposed 11% tax increase, that hardly harms my broader argument. (I've never claimed to be an investigative journalist, by the way... I don't even claim to be a journalist!)

I do think about the value of my home (although I don't intend to sell it or borrow on it anymore than I already have), and it seems to me that a surplus of houses being sold by people who cannot afford to live here anymore will hardly count in my favor.

More generally, though, you're operating with a missed premise: that services and housing value will be better in the long run if citizens stand up now. These financial difficulties are not going to go away until the way the town and state do business changes. Ending public-sector unionization for one.

A case in point: I can't really afford private school. I've spent years shaving pleasures and conveniences from my budget, and working my tail off to advance in my career, because I feel that I'd be doing my children a disservice were I not to give them the opportunity for something better than the government is providing. What effect does it have on property values when parents (and potential parents) think that private school might prove to be a necessity as the ever expanding hunger of the NEA bleeds services from the district?

Again, perhaps you'll suggest that I focus on things that fall under the scope of the financial town meeting, but I'll reply that you've touched on an essential point: It is no longer acceptable for the local and state governments to continue putting the larger and larger portions of their spending "out of the reach" of democratic decision-making. Instead, elected officials must begin pushing back on the corrupt system that seeks to make expansion beyond inflation an immutable reality.