Three reasons this is a bad idea — and a fourth that makes it seem good

Three things you need to know about this story:

1. The county had to balance its budget, though I can’t for the life of me figure out how cutting the open space tax does it.

2. All of us could use a tax cut during this climate.

3. Cutting the open space tax is downright short sighted. The reason is that these kinds of measures often prove to be far less temporary than initially claimed.

There is a fourth issue to consider, as well: Cutting funding for open space will hit us down here a the southern end of the county pretty hard, because most of the remaining open space and farmland is in five or six towns. If the county does not have the money, the land will not be preserved — and you can do the rest of the math (while you are sitting in the traffic created by the development that occurs on property that can no longer be preserved).

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