A PROMISE TO KEEP: 5%
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A Ballot Committee of
Citizens for Limited Taxation & Government
PO Box 408 * Peabody, MA 01960
Phone:(617) 248-0022 /(508) 538-3900 E-Mail: cltg@cltg.org
Visit our web-page at: http://cltg.org
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*** Promise Report ***
Thursday, December 4, 1997

Greetings activists;

The word is official -- WE MADE IT!

The Secretary of State's official total for our tax rolback initiative is: 65,045 -- 117 signatures more than the required 64,928.

I've been trying to work up an update all day, but thanks to the Boston Herald's false report this morning that we used "paid" petitioners, our immediately going nuclear, and the deluge of phone calls the Herald's report created here -- I seem to be getting it done a sentence at a time.

For the record, we do NOT and have NEVER used paid petitioners. The Herald will print an apology tomorrow as well as run Barbara's letter to the editor.

But I did want to get this official news to you quickly.

That's the good news: the bad news is the challenges from the Massachusetts Teachers Association and the Tax Equity Alliance of Massachusetts (TEAM) are coming. We've quickly got to raise tons of money (It cost the rent control repeal group some $200,000 and months to pull off their challenge) for an attorney to defend the win, and very first step is that we've immediately got to begin copying every single one of the tens of thousands of our petitions up at the Secretary of State's office, as soon as we make arrangements with him, and rent a copying machine to locate there. This will go on for months before there's a clear resolution. (It would have been so much easier and cheaper to have just collected another two thousand signatures while we could, sigh.)

I expect I'll get the regular update done and posted a bit later, so watch for it. Our final total has been sent to our web-page:

http://cltg.org

Again, thanks so much to all you petitioners! Your work and commitment got us this far.

Chip Ford --