Council mtg 10/10
Wow. I had no idea that this meeting would last so long. I think we adjourned around 11:30pm. And I really thought that we would be done by 9pm.
Main discussion items:
1) Ballfields - CYB offered to develop town land, if they got exclusive rights for both the time (six mos) to develop the project and for the useful life of the fields. The request makes sense, but other groups are now interested. So there was a good discussion on the appropriateness of moving forward with this project without having explicitly asked others if they were interested in their own field development project.
2) West Main Street improvements - The discussion last night was for the formation of a committee to develop the project. What interested me the most was the continued promotion of the linear trail as "economic development." I didn't buy that argument last fall. And I still don't buy it. As well, people in town still don't buy that argument. I got an email today from a resident. He was irate over the mere discussion of extending the linear trail. Personally, I don't understand why some Council members insist on pushing forward with the linear trail. I believe the town has no appetite for recreation projects right now, hence... CYB offers to develop new ballfields.
3) Senior Tax Relief study committee - Tom Ruocco suggested the creation of this committee. I believe the idea was well received by the Council.
4) Union contracts - This ended up being a rather partisan issue. At least moreso than I had anticipated. It certainly looked to me like the blood was boiling on this one. And that mood went beyond members of the Council.
The vote fell along party lines, although everyone seemed to have different reasons for why they voted for/against. My reason for opposing the contracts was that I simply feel that we should be moving from "defined benefit" plans and to "defined contribution" plans for all new union employees. However, I was the only person who cast his/her vote for that reason.
Tim White
Town Council, 4th district
TimWhite98@yahoo.com
7 comments:
Let me see if I understood the proceedings correctly. We can easily form a committe of business owners and concered residents for Wets Main Street sidewalk project. We do not require, or as it came across there will not be any members of the Town Council on the committee.
But, when it came to the issue of Senior tax relief, the Council Chair decided the Council would chosse members of the committee. What is the difference between committtee's?
The difference is the West Main Street has lost 500k of funding from the State and has no chance of getting support from the Cheshire residents for additional funding.
The Senior Tax Relief could actually show demonstratable reasons why the relief program should be put in place, so Town Council should have say over who goes on the committtee as a hidden reason to protect the hidden agendas of the Town Council.
A properly developed tax relief program would benefit the Town, reduce tax increases and be the right thing to do.
I think for West Main, the Council decided to leave other bodies (such as PZC or EDC) to make the decision on members.
But with Senior Tax Relief, no other body was given direction to decide membership. And off the top of my head, I'm not sure which body would do that. Any suggestions? Perhaps the Retirement Board (they deal with the town pension funds) and Human Services? I'm really not sure.
Funnily enough , I nearly conceived a website including this. I'm happy someone else took that endeavour as well as taking in these congratulationses right now. - stop snoring
I'm not sold on the West Main project. Seems it's a lot of money for cosmetics. When I buy tires, does the shop need to be on a yuppie looking street?
Believing in defined benefit plans vs. defined contribution plans is sort of like saying "I'm in favor of clean air". Everyone is. Question is, what was it that you would have done differently?
Also, I think I heard both the Planning director and the Economic Development director say that there is a demonstrated link between linear trail development and economic development. I take it that you disagree with your town professionals?
I'll give this site full marks.This is because if it's utilised to it's full-scale potential , it might make your line of work a good deal easier. - bonsai trees
anon 12:48...
I would have supported moving from the DB to a DC plan.
As for describing the linear park as "economic development," I disagree. I tried to be very clear about that last fall during the local election. I said that both during the Capital Budget vote (Aug 05) and during the LOWV Council Forum.
The linear trail at West Main is, in my opinion, a quality of life issue, not an economic development issue.
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