"Vote NO for construction of a masssive building to help old lumpy fat people - you have to build a quality small building for a quality small town - [name redacted] you are a smart person and I am confident that you will vote the best way."
Friends of Public Safety - Vote YES
Those opposed to the Public Safety Building have used obfuscation and half truths for the last 10 years. Every year the same group of people have tried to plant the seeds of doubt by coming up with hopes and wishes without any substance, yet enough to make many voters hope for a better outcome. Hope is not a business strategy. Over the last decade, the price has just continued to rise while the building has gotten smaller. Let's stop this cycle before we lose our fire, police, and EMS staff.
Read some of the recent goings-on below. If you think we are not telling the truth, email us and we'll give you more facts and, if needed, correct any statements.
What the Naysayers are telling you!
They would like you to believe they have your back. Below is a text that was recently sent, presumably in error, to a supporter by one of the opponents:
"Vote NO for construction of a masssive building to help old lumpy fat people - you have to build a quality small building for a quality small town - [name redacted] you are a smart person and I am confident that you will vote the best way."
"...old lumpy fat people...." That does not sound like they have our backs or are really concerned about us. It makes all of us wonder what the real motive is.
A recent opposition mailer says WE CAN BUILD A PSB FOR $14.785 MILLION
That's a great, and an awfully exact, figure from people who are not authorized to obtain a bid from any state approved bidder and where we don't see any plans when there has been ample time to show them.
They were asked at the special town meeting if they had any plans (so they could be submitted to an actual contractor, and they don't) and the reply by one of the opponents was "...that's a silly question..." Do we want to delay this project even more, risk losing the $1 Million federal grant, and have the next bid be even higher than the current bid? It takes over a year to produce the over 100 pages of detailed plans required for accurate bidding. That's another year, and another price hike, likely putting their figure higher than the present bid.
Another mailer stated that PRINCETON HAS THE SECOND LARGEST TAX BILL IN THE REGION
This is a twisted truth.This is misleading because Princeton also has the second highest single family home value AND the highest income per capita in the region.
The mil rate (cost/$thousand) is the second LOWEST of the region.
In short: For fiscal year 2026, Princeton's single family tax rate, as a percentage of value, was the SECOND LOWEST in the region, and as a percentage of income, it IS THE LOWEST.
If you want to check for yourself, CLICK THIS LINK. (Use your back button to return here).
(By the way, they used the 2025 numbers, not the 2026 numbers.)
Another mailer stated that the cost of the PSB was going to be $30 Million.
Another TWISTED TRUTH! If you buy a $500,000 house at today's interest rates of around 6%, with a 30 year mortgage and 10% down, you will end up paying about $1 million. The $30M figure is misleading because they are trying to link the total amount paid at the end of the bond. What's important to you is how it will impact your tax rate. The truth is that if your home is assesed at $850,000 your tax impact will be less than small cup of DD coffee per day (based on avg price in Worcester.)
Another recent mailer said there would be "No water for water trucks..." (They were spouting this before they even had the well testing results.)
The Fire Department does not now and has no intention of ever filling their tankers from a faucet or hose from the station!!! This was made clear a more than one public meeting when the opposition asked the question.
The water needed amounts to thousands of gallons for the FD apparatus. What the FD does is to draft from our local fire ponds to refill apparatus.
This is another effort to muddy the water. (Sorry for the pun.)
Bye the way: The well test passed the last week of March with almost twice the required volume.
An opposition mailer is trying to imply that the vote for a public safety building is somehow connected to a proposition 2-1/2 overide.
This is another twisted story that has nothing to do with the public safety building.
The votes for the Public Safety Building come first. The costs for the PSB are laid out HERE(click) on the Town's website. There are NO OTHER proposed costs for the PSB. Later this year, or maybe next, you will get to vote on any overrides. You can vote the overide down, and it WON'T affect the PSB construction.
These are completely different votes! The opposition want to tie these together to confound people. Click here to go to our FAQ page for more.
In a very recent mailer, those opposed said "Let's agree on an amount and design a PSB to fit that amount."
The next mailer the opposition sent out soon after the above mailer opined that $14.875 million was the correct amount to spend--even though they admitted to having no plans and had not hired an architect. However, the interesting point is that several years ago, they managed to convince everyone that a $12 million dollar building was too much, and about 10 years ago, an $8 million dollar building was too much. The pattern here seems to be that they just don't want to spend any money, ever. The cost of the building is not going down. Someday soon, the current building will fail structurally. Everytime we kick this can down the road, the price goes up, and up, and up.
Why don't we regionalize our departments.
Regionalization might save money in equipment costs, but personnel costs would overshawdow those savings, AND we would still need a new building.
There are no truly regionalized fire systems in MA as of today*
Regionalization is NOT mutual aid; it is a much more formal agreement.
When a town regionalizes, they save money by eliminating some of their equipment and sharing that equipment with other towns in the regionalized system. However, for that to work, each town MUST maintain 24/7 staffing that meets NFPA standards for the equipment being shared. This would require more than 8 full-time personnel. We would no longer have volunteer and on-call staff, a very significant savings to the town. In addition to NFPA standards, they must all meet OSHA standards, EMS licensing rules, the State Fire Code (527 CMR 1.00), and regional bylaws and ordanances.Like most occupations, firefighting is a specialized skill that requires specific pieces of apparatus for specific tasks. Fire departments have tankers, pumpers, ladders, brush trucks, rescue trucks, and more. Each piece has a specialized purpose and are staff with people with training specific to that piece.
For Princeton, this WOULD require unionization, because all of the towns around Princeton are unionized and staff would be shared within the regional district. This would force our wages and benefits to be equivalent.
Finally, we would STILL NEED a new public safety building. Not one of the unionized towns around us that might take part in such a plan would ever consider having their union workers in a building that did not meet the NFPA, OSHA, etc. standards that a union would require to protect its staff. Further, it would take years to work out these requirements and collective bargaining agreements, while during this time constructions costs will only continue to rise.
*Marston Mills, Centevile, and Osterville on the cape are part of Barnstable county. They are a collaborative. They are considered villages and not a truly regionalized system. There are no truly regionalized system in Massachusetts.
This is going to raise our tax bill 50%, or this is going to cost us many dollars every day and thousands every year, etc.
This argument by the opposition is just another flavor of the claim this is a prop 2-1/2 override. This is absolutely NOT a prop 2-1/2 override and when you get to the polls and read the actual wording for the debt exclusion is specifically states that it is EXEMPT from a prop 2-1/2 override.
This is another attempt to muddy the waters and cast doubt. If there is another 2-1/2 override it will NOT be this year and it will NOT affect what you are paying for the Public Safety Building and you WILL have the opportunity to vote any prop 2-1/2 override down.