Attending Nashua City Aldermen's "Vision 2020"

Last Saturday I went to the Nashua City Aldermen's "Vision 2020" meeting in my ward/district held during the morning.  Everyone from the community who came out had a chance to speak about the issues most important to them related to what they'd like to see the city of Nashua doing in the future.  At least that is how it's supposed to work in theory, but in practice not very many of the true representative citizenry keep up to date about these events or have time/inclination to attend.  This means that a lot of times the people who actually do come out will unfortunately have some vested interest in a specific city program that may indirectly benefit a small group that includes them.  Not exactly a huge surprise.

So of course, most of this small crowd's suggestions for the city's future would cause spending to go up, and yet not one person before me said anything about cutting spending, taxes, or the budget.  I brought up these topics and some of the aldermen there thought I was out-of-line and off-topic because "this wasn't a city budget discussion".  Well, I guess the premise of spending more of other people's money should just be assumed in this "Vision 2020" and never put to question.  After all, why should I have any say in my government?  It seems like a corollary that my fellow Ward 6 neighbors and I will be facing higher property taxes leading up to 2020, unless we start paying attention.  So I'm occupied in the State Rep race, but we need a good Alderman who is concerned about spending.

Now who's up for the task?