DAN ALLIE
WESTFIELD – In the last few weeks of his campaign for city council, Dan Allie and a small group of volunteers gathered several hundred signatures to repeal the so-called ‘Automatic Gasoline Tax.’ This was part of a larger grassroots effort to collect the required 100,000 signatures to put a question on the 2014 statewide.
“The response has been excellent,” said Allie. “Ninety-seven percent of people are willing to put the question on the ballot and a number of people volunteered on the spot.”
Allie estimated about 40 percent of people were aware of the new law passed this summer.
“Sometimes we think everyone has heard about an issue, but that is not the case,” he said. “Only about 80 percent of people had heard about the software tax that was recently repealed because the state could not figure out how to implement it.”
The question asks voters to “eliminate the requirement that the state gasoline tax be adjusted every year based on a change in the Consumer Price Index.” “It is a highly controversial, possibly illegal, definitely unconstitutional and dangerous taxing mechanism,” said Allie. “We pay our state legislators to vote on things like raising taxes. If we don’t squawk on a tax with no votes on something as fundamental as gasoline, which affects everything, we will have nobody to blame but ourselves.”
“We need help across Westfield and will be gathering signatures right up until the November 20 deadline,” he said. “People can contact me at [email protected] for more information or to volunteer.”
