More municipal meltdown

Posting may be relatively light for the next week or two, while the CommonWealth magazine staff work on the Winter issue, but there will be new maps and data before the presidential primary season kicks of in Iowa.

In the meantime, the transcript from CommonWealth’s "Municipal Meltdown" forum is now online. It was a lively event, and a great crash course on how many cities and towns are approaching a crisis point.

Not surprisingly, anti-tax activist Barbara Anderson shook things up with some blunt language:

No one is talking to the people who pay the bills. No one is being respectful to them, at either the state or local level where they threaten dire results from overrides not passing and then it doesn’t work out. Until you listen to the voters, you are not going to get respect or cooperation and you are going to be wondering why these things happen.