Open forum 12/8
The Amity Observer recently ran this editorial on the need to combat underage drinking.
Here's the Herald's take (by Leslie Hutchison) on Monday's Senior Tax Relief meeting.
I agree with Colin McEnroe's view on the State Police scandal, for the most part. Until head's roll, no one should be congratulated. And while I'm uncertain of the benefit of a second commission reviewing the work of the previous panel... I don't necessarily think that Gov. Rell's call for a second investigation is bad. Clearly, CT government (both state and local) is rife with wrong-doing. We must clean house. But in order to properly mete out justice, someone needs to speak with everyone even tangentially involved in this state police scandal and ask the proverbial two questions: What did you know? And when did you know it? It should be done like a real investigation: under oath and with evidence, such as emails, memos, phone records, etc. No stone should be left unturned. Only after this process is complete should we be congratulating people. Because only then will we know the good guys from the bad guys. (And keeping tabs on the cost of this fiasco... we've already sunk 9,500 manhours into this thing. That's nearly five years. And if one investigator's total compensation cost is about $100,000/yr, we've already spent nearly half a million bucks. Can anyone attest to those numbers? I'm really not sure.)
And unrelated to anything that you would see reported anywhere... I was recently quoted the price of biodiesel ($2.79/gallon) in comparison with the price of petrodiesel ($2.71/gallon). Since the two are near parity, we ought to at least have a real discussion about biodiesel. Who knows? Maybe our own public works department will soon be using biodiesel. I'll update when I have more info.
Finally, for those of you who keep track of this stuff... the Council meets next Tuesday and we usually get the agenda on the Friday before a Tuesday meeting. I'm hoping to post the agenda here by Saturday. Until then, I'm not yet sure what's on it, except for the discussion with our state legislative delegation. I'm sure next Tuesday will include a "lively" conversation about binding arbitration between David Schrumm and Mary Fritz.
Tim White
Town Council, 4th District
3 comments:
Thanks Bluecoat. and yeah, I wasn't sure on whether CT would get billed or how all that would work. But even if NY State is footing the bill, I figure it's still worth noting that there are costs related to this whole investigation... an investigation that never should have been necessary in the first place.
I do wonder though, do NY and CT have ongoing reciprocation agreements for this type of work? If not, and I were NY, I'd be tempted to send CT a bill... although it's really too late in the game to simply send a bill for $500k... or whatever the cost is.
Tim, if you are interested there is an article in today's Courant on this. Since the links don't stay for the Courant, I'll let you go there yoourself. Sounds to me that the Commissioner is ho humming it.
3:00pm... I think this link will stay for a while...
"Ultimately, Boyle opted to keep the same command staff that had served under his predecessor, Arthur Spada, who left with the departure of former Gov. John G. Rowland.
Boyle said Friday that he was comfortable with the management that was in place."
Ho humming it sounds like an accurate description.
I don't know the history and details as well as others, but based on my reading of this article (which isn't enough to make a fair judgement, but it is a start for a fair judgement)... sounds to me as though Boyle and the whole command staff ought to go.
Between this and our dreadful accounting practices (something to which I feel I am qualified to speak), our state gov't needs a serious overhaul.
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