Why is approving the Community Preservation Act on Nov. 5 a good deal for Colrain? Because this small property tax surcharge is different.

Revenues raised will be matched up to 100% by state funds. This is “buy one and get one free.” The CPA helps a town maintain its history, its natural spaces, and support for affordable housing. These are all the things that hold a community together and often the ones that get lost in the normal budget scramble.

Those who can most afford the tax pay a greater share. Everyone will have the first $100,000 of their residential property value exempted, and there are full exemptions for low- and moderate-income seniors, and for low-income folks. The greater your financial resources, the higher the tax increase, but the exemptions mean that no homeowner pays more 3% of the total value of their real estate.

The CPA is good value. In Colrain, the average taxpayer will seeonly a $68 property tax increase, but with the state match, this will generate roughly $100,000 a year for things like historic building preservation, recreation, and housing assistance for the most vulnerable.

The match comes from a stable revenue source, a dedicated trust funded by a surcharge placed on all real estate transactions at the state’s Registries of Deeds, not state tax revenues; this is a fund into which Colrainers have been paying for years without benefiting. The CPA distribution formula favors small towns with moderate incomes, and Colrain is virtually guaranteed a 90-100% match (as an example, for the last six years, Conway, Goshen, Pelham, Sunderland, Whately and Leverett all received a 100% match).

Not many programs help keep the community affordable, expand community recreational resources and preserve historic resources while exempting those who can’t afford it from paying.

Colrain is in desperate need of funding to support these things. Our recreation field has minimal facilities and is held together by overstretched volunteers without access to resources. Our school needs new playground equipment; our historic society has no climate-controlled storage for most of its collection.

Despite our rivers and streams, we have no legal access for swimming. Out of only two remaining historic schoolhouses (there were once 19), one was renovated privately but the other needs a new roof and much more. Our cemetery headstones need repair. And we currently can provide no assistance to the many folks in town in housing distress.

The CPA can help us imagine a new vision for Colrain. Almost 200 communities in Massachusetts have adopted CPA, including our Franklin County neighbors Conway, Deerfield, Greenfield, Northfield, Leverett, Shelburne, Shutesbury, Sunderland and Whately. Most have had the CPA in place for decades and have used CPA funds to complete hundreds of community projects.

It’s true that CPA projects will take work, but anything worthwhile takes work. CPA projects tend to be exciting — things that have needed doing for years become doable when there is funding, and that energizes people and brings them together. As volunteers know, doing something for one’s community is very satisfying.

Colrain’s CPA warrant article lost by only two votes in a late night vote in June’s annual Town Meeting. As less than 10% of eligible voters were present at that time, we believe that it is only fair to let the majority of Colrain voters weigh in on this important decision.

Concerns about government overreach can be well-founded, but sometimes the state’s initiatives are good for towns. This is one of them. We urge a “yes” vote to adopt the CPA on Nov. 5!

Betsy Browning, Lynn DiTullio, David Greenberg, Jill Lyons and Jade Mortimer are members of the Colrain CPA Ballot Initiative Committee.