Groton — To Margaret Adams, it’s simple: She pays taxes in Groton, so she should be able to vote on matters affecting the Groton tax rate.

Adams, who is a resident of Florida but owns a home with her husband on Circle Avenue in Groton, feels strongly enough about the issue that she got a list from the town assessor of all of the other 2,040 non-resident taxpayers in town. Then she mailed them letters last month, urging them to contact the town’s Charter Revision Commission.

“My concern is very simple,” she told the commission on Monday. “We’re taxpayers. We own property in Groton. I feel we should be able to vote on items that affect our taxes.”

The commission is reviewing Groton’s charter to look at potential changes to the structure of government, such as whether to have a Town Council and Representative Town Meeting, how often government leaders should be elected and whether residents should be able to vote budgets up or down in a referendum.

Adams hopes their discussion will also include consideration of non-resident property owners. Adams said she wasn’t able to vote in 2011 on the $6.4 million referendum to rebuild Thames Street, or the Nov. 8 referendum on whether to approve $184.5 million to build one new middle school and renovate and convert the existing two middle schools into elementary schools.

Both measures passed, and Adams said she would have supported both.

That’s beside the point, though. Her objection isn’t to what happened, but to “taxation without representation,” she said. She and her husband have owned the home on Circle Avenue since 1964. They have been Florida residents for about 30 years, but have maintained the house in Groton.

Adams said non-resident taxpayers in Groton live all over the country and even overseas; she mailed letters not only to taxpayers along the East Coast, but to those in the Dakotas, Texas, Utah, Canada, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

So far, she has heard back from about five people she mailed letters to, she said. Charter commissioner Rosanne Kotowski said she also heard from three people who received Adams’ letter and live in Ledyard but pay taxes in Groton.

d.straszheim@theday.com