Your taxes can't go up except for by voter approved bond, and I suspect that a tax freeze would exclude voter approved bonds, anyway.There will be some sort of historical commission and they will be able to provide you with all the information you need.

AND they usual MO now is to get the lemmings to pass bonds etc.. that are tacked onto your property taxes to make it WAY more than 1% overall. 

A very, very conservative asset allocation between Vanguard Total Bond Market Index Fund (VBTLX) and Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund (VTSAX).  

At first, they will give you the low price, hard to get rid of properties, or the crazy clients, and you'll be happy to have them, you need to cut your teeth somewhere.     

I’m going to assume 300k isn’t like all your portfolio money and you’ve got some in stocks and bonds etc elsewhere.

You could also go to the towns building department and ask for a list of plumbers who have bonds on file with the town.

Does anyone have any contractors (only licensed, insured, and bonded, please) that you would recommend who has done great work for you?

Right now, there are Treasuries that are yielding 4.7% and AAA corporate bonds at 5% where there is no work, and the risk is either zero or extremely low. 

Lending lawyers can be as rare as hens teeth so you’ll likely hear the same few names.

It is like a bond-style evaluation.