I have been watching with disgust the circus in Augusta. Gov. Baldacci is the ringmaster. Promising to reduce property taxes. Three or more times in the past, state officials have promised to reduce property taxes and have taxed us more to do it. Property taxes went up.

Everybody in a small town knows how property taxes are levied. People go to town meetings and vote to raise sums of money. The town officials then figure out how much they will have to tax your property. That is it. Plain and simple. The state has very little to do with it. They do mandate higher valuation on property, costing property owners more.

What they are doing in Augusta now is figuring ways to raise your property taxes.

I would like to be corrected if I am wrong.

Roland Bennett, Buckfield