Hmmm.

Well Sunapee is the "resort" town of the area and, I think, has the highest home values.

Frankly I can't say that I approve of this.

Essentially Sullivan County is pretty rural and hasn't had the greatest time economically. Sunapee is really a high income area, in comparison, with the rest of the county. So yes it pays more per household, but what kind of county services are they expecting with only 3k people? Are they really expecting the county to spend 25% of it's budget to make 3k people happy?

If you really want to hear them scream just tell them they can go ahead and move into another county. But the *lake* remains in Sullivan county and if they so much as stick a toe into it, they have to pay for a permit.

This is just another example of the Hamptons effect. Wealthy landowners viewing having regular people on the same taxbase as "oppression".

The San Fernando Valley portion of Los Angeles received about 20% of city & police services. It accounts for about 40% of city revenue. It's just a far off cash cow that doesn't need minding.

ed...perhaps they would like to get about 8% of the resources and pay about 8% of the revenue, as they are 8% of the population...

would that be unreasonable?

Surprising, Texas has some loopy laws about annexation of unincorporated land. Land owners in a prospective area to be annexed have very little recourse here. At least, the laws also require the city to provide emergency and utility services, though not immediately.

I always thought of Cheshire county as the "Monadnock Region" and Sunapee as, well, the Sunapee region. As in, say the Monadnock-Sunapee Greenway...
Anyhoo, Folks from Mass, CT, NY love to come to these towns with their huge SUVs, fur coats, and City dollars, and buy up the pricey resort properties. This drives up property values, and tax revenues. The flip side of that, is that many of the local folks have trouble affording the increases.
Opression of the wealthy, wow, what a concept.

How progressive can the tax system get before the rich walk away from the table? People will only take so much abuse.

Opression of the wealthy, wow, what a concept.

As your own previous sentence indicates, it's not only the wealthy who are getting shafted...

New Hampshire also has a state policy of doner and receiver towns. If you happen to live in a town designated as a doner you pay more in taxes than your town recieves. You pay this higher rate even if you don't live in a fancy house and have lived in that town long before it became relatively well off.

Hmmmm.

"ed...perhaps they would like to get about 8% of the resources and pay about 8% of the revenue, as they are 8% of the population...

would that be unreasonable?"

I'll accept that if NH institutes a 5% gross income tax on all income over $40k per year, regardless of where it is earned. Ask the people in Sunapee if they'd prefer that instead.

Unless things have changed since I left NH, the state doesn't have an income tax. All municpal and county services are paid for by property taxes. If you live on prime real estate, including lakefront property, that people value highly, then you're going to pay for it. Don't like it? Don't live there.

Hell I live in New Jersey so I'm more than familiar with excessive taxation. But you can argue principles all you like, but there's a great difference between having a theoretical principle and actually making it work. And having a principle of paying for only those services you get is a nice principle, but I'd like to see people actually make it work in governance.

Hmmmm.

"How progressive can the tax system get before the rich walk away from the table? People will only take so much abuse."

Where do they plan to go?

Someplace cheaper.

Hmmm.

"Someplace cheaper."

They already did that, that's why they purchased property in Sunapee and not in Manhattan.

With apologies to Yogi Berra:

Nobody lives in Manhatten anymore, it's too crowded.

Seriously, there's always another Vail or Branson or Sunapee just waiting to be discovered by the swells. Just ask anybody who can remember Atlantic City's heyday.