All I know is what I read online, and I have a Google Alert set for "Reflections in Ramsey" so that the anon. author can bypass me easily by changing his Wordpress blog to another name and identity. With or without a dimming of the northern lights.
In the past while on the town's Charter Commission I recall the question arising and disappearing while I pushed for charter amendment by the Commission with some others foot-dragging about whether we had the power. That you find out by getting off the dime and doing it and unless and until a judge tells you the power is not there, it is.
But majority rules and I quit the Commission.
I recall the Assistant Chair [or Vice-Chair, whatever the title] then had innovative charter language in mind, he proposed it, but it hung fire. Whether that person still resides in Ramsey is not known to me. The proposal within meetings, for convenience was referred to as the "Niska amendment" or the "proposed Niska Charter amendment." It was direct in its language, a good proposal. Diddling happened.
May the question this time be resolved properly. Whatever fee or tax is imposed, the household here will pay, and let the Reflector fight it out, (given past opportunity being water under the bridge and well down river all the way to the oceans of the world).
Bless them. Sitting on an issue at a time when action seemed wiser, seeing it show a Phoenix-like audacity now, bless them all. Some have patience with diddling, some do not.
Any reader caring can follow that opening paragraph link and wonder about detail. Asking the Reflector is difficult, given anonymity. Go read multiple pages of some meeting minutes or meeting agenda online, or Charter Commission meeting minutes, and see if any clarity can be found.
In any event, whether called a "franchise fee" or a "tax," it is a "tax" in its effect because utilities pass on charges to ratepayers.
Before his death poet and songwriter Leonard Cohen began one item, "They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom, For trying to change the system from within, ...". A shorter number of years here, but boredom as real as Cohen's. There will be nothing more written here about the situation.