Cover, Nov. 8: “Voters: Yes on Mansion Tax”
It’s a start
To the Santa Fe Association of Realtors: So, Santa Feans considered the proposed, high-end real estate tax to try and ease the affordability burden in our community. Pro and con arguments were made and considered, the voters decided, decisively. Democracy at work. Good to see.
As a revenue proposal, it won’t solve the affordability crisis alone, but it’s a start. It also makes me proud to see my fellow citizens are willing to accept a modest tax proposal, in order to help lower income folks get into housing or home ownership.
Yet your response is a lawsuit, based apparently on a petty little fear that somehow sales volume might be marginally affected and you might lose a few bucks. Pretty unlikely, given the highly desirable pull of the high-end Santa Fe second home and retirement market. By the way, we’re all still waiting to hear your plan to address the affordability crisis here in Santa Fe?
In short, you just look greedy. Garden variety greedy. It’s embarrassing. Let it go, drop your lawsuit, go away. You’ll still make money.
Meanwhile, the rest of us that care about everyone in the community will keep trying to help make the dream of home ownership, or even a home itself, more available.
Trey Berndt, Santa Fe
Blank Check
Just give the city more money to mismanage. They can’t even comply with annual audits or reconcile the budget now.
Brenda Marie Sandoval, via Facebook
CORRECTION
Last week’s story on filmmaker Godfrey Reggio’s Once Within a Time incorrectly stated Reggio’s newest movie would make its premiere in Santa Fe at the Center for Contemporary Arts. It screened at the 2022 Santa Fe International Film Festival first.