Thursday, November 15, 2007

Open forum 11/15

Congressman Chris Murphy was liveblogging tonight at My Left Nutmeg.

There was a car accident on Rte 70 near I-84 (WRA, by Lauresha Xhihani).

Here is the Herald's take on the firefighters' pension vote (by Josh Morgan).

State Senator Lou DeLuca (R-Woodbury) resigned! Unfortunately, the state Senate basically punted on the whole scandal. No doubt that's because they didn't want to do anything that could hurt their motto: Comity Reigns Supreme Under the Gold Dome - don't hold fellow legislators accountable for their criminal behavior! Term limits, anyone?

And here's an excerpt from a constituent's email I received today: According to the statistics on this website, New Haven County will have 2,536 foreclosures due to subprime lending and as a result of this 166,000 houses in the county will suffer a decrease in homevalue to the tune of $2,494 for each "affected" (by the nearest foreclosures) home. The concern was related to Cheshire's revaluation.

I'll try to do more on the Council meeting this weekend. Until then... what else is happening?

Tim White
Town Council, 4th District

26 comments:

Anonymous said...

Tim,

The Cheshire Herald has a short note stating that sewer bills may be delayed by as much as two months, as the town is contemplating billing changes? Can yu tel us what they are referring to?

Thanks

Tim White said...

I haven't seen the Herald yet, but I just emailed the Town Manager.

mmilone@cheshirect.org

I'll try to post the answer as soon as I get it.

Anonymous said...

Interesting thought on revaluation...with declining prices, and I would say that most Cheshire homes declined by at least 10k(smaller home)....what will the effect be on taxes....can anyone actually see taxes decreasing? Now that they are allowed to revalue homes every 3 or 4 years....are they stuck in a declining market?

Anonymous said...

Cheshire Girls Volleyball rocks. They are going to the Class LL State Championships on Saturday at 7pm at Berlin High School. Come out and support some very hard working young ladies and coaches. Kick some butt Cheshire!

Anonymous said...

Is there a conflict of interest?

I heard that Sean Strollo had recused himself from the Watkins trucking application due to his towing business and another application. Is this true?

Couldn't W/S funnel business to him from mall customers that have car problems?

Anonymous said...

anon 9:52 If prices or values go down the mill rate will go up higher to make up the difference. That is why it is so important to keep costs down. If your house assessment goes down 50% the mill rate will go up 50%. The town still has the 90 million budget to maintain. So, I don't believe your taxes will ever go down unless you downsize.

Anonymous said...

The reality of lower valuations appears to be ready to hit us all. When value drops, mill rates increase in order to feed the hungry monster known as the budget. There is an opportunity here for the Town Council, BOE and Town Manager to seriously start operational reviews to identify and remove waste. It may become necessary to cut back on programs; both municipal educational and recreational. When times get tough it is the job of leadership to make the tough decisions.

Anonymous said...

During the last reevaluation there was a major shift in the tax burden from commercial to residential? Why?

This has to be corrected. Commercial realestate values have certainly risen higher than residential. Mcfees just sold for $1,000,000 and this requires demolishion.

Anonymous said...

there is a shortage of commercial property in central Cheshire due to zoning restrictions.

Anonymous said...

A few comments on previous posts.

Sean Strollo was not on the commission and had no town releated interest during any of the Watkins applications.

The McPhee sale was "high-value" because there is a tenant, CVS, that needs it for a larger establishment. That price is based on supply and demand and a tenant's longterm commitment to a shopping center.

Some of you overlook the obvious about America. We live in a free market economy that is somewhat regulated but not controlled by government, neighbor discontent about the project, etc.

Commercial enterprise must persist otherwise you are relying on government control. Most of us define those economic models as communism, socialism and facsism. Be cautious over what you ask the regulaters to accomplish for you. The more power you give them the less you have.

Anonymous said...

What zoning restrictions? If someone wants to change them just go before P&Z and say they allow it in the northend so why not here?

Anonymous said...

It would be interesting to see what the McPhee property was assessed. I will bet it is not $700,000.

Tim White said...

12:07 said:

We live in a free market economy

I bet Ron Paul would disagree, particularly in relation to the unelected, unaccountable Fed's Board of Governors. ;)

The more power you give them the less you have.

I agree, but... if the comment is directed toward the ND, then I'd offer that the PZC changes were a deregulation. Thus power was taken from the regulators and given to the property owners.

Anonymous said...

Tim, if you think elected officials ought to micromanaged the money supply then you must think Weimar Germany was a huge success.

A $14 Trillion dollar economy is not good enough for you?

Tim White said...

I don't have enough knowledge on the pros and cons of "Central Banking" well enough to support or oppose it.

However, it seems to me that the Fed's meetings could be opened up to the public. Shedding light on the process (deliberations) would help.

An initial thought... the Fed Chairman is appointed for a four year term... s/he is not employed at the discretion of the President... as compared to Cabinet appointments (SecState, SecDef, etc.) And while other appointments (FBI Director) are not at the discretion of the POTUS... in such a case, it seems that there is a need for independence (such as when it is necessary to investigate the executive). But in the case of banking... I don't see any reason (on the surface, at least) for why their decisions should be made behind closed doors.

As for "micromanaging the money supply," at a very basic (perhaps simplistic) level, Ron Paul's call for a return to the gold standard seems to me that it is not a call for micromanaging... or even managing... the money supply.

On the contrary, enacting his goal would be anything but micromanaging. It'd be fairly simple...

1) count up the gold owned by the US Government

2) count up the US Dollars in existence (or in circulation)

3) 2 / 1 = the value of the dollar... then leave it pegged there.

Again... this may be simplistic. And there are times when greater volatility may result as there is no Fed... but at times like these, there may be fewer houses going on the market... hence lower volatility and more stability.

My feeling is that there are pros and cons to everything. But speaking very generally, I prefer less government involvement and more free markets.

As for the Weimar Republic... wasn't the problem something like this...

1) debts went unpaid
2) gov't prints more money to pay debts
3) more money chases after the same goods
4) hyperinflation sets in

I'm not an expert, but I thought that was the general idea. And if Ron Paul has his way... with a gold standard, it would be impossible for the gov't to print more money... so the analogy to Weimar doesn't seem right.

Again though... I'm no historian... and I'm no expert on Central Banking... I just prefer to keep things simple and open.

Finally, is a $14trillion economy a result of the Fed or is it despite the Fed? I really don't know.

Anonymous said...

Tim, you really think politicians would permit this country to stay on a real gold standard.....I'm glad you are far less incredulous about local politics.

We are going to let the folks who build bridges to nowhere control the printing presses....rrright...

If we could have turned the entire government since the 1970's over to Volcker, Greenspan and Bernacke we would have been better off than what our elected officials delivered.

A gold standard is just a means to use monetary policy to avoid inflation. Compared with the track record from 1960-1980 the Fed has done a great job in recent decades on this front.

Tim White said...

lol... history repeats itself... taken from wikipedia - andrew jackson:

As president, Jackson worked to take away the federal charter of the Second Bank of the United States (it would continue to exist as a state bank). The Second Bank had been authorized, during James Madison's tenure in 1816, for a 20 year period. Jackson opposed the national bank concept on ideological grounds. In Jackson's veto message (written by George Bancroft), the bank needed to be abolished because:

It concentrated an excessive amount of the nation's financial strength into a single institution

It exposed the government to control by "foreign interests"

It served mainly to make the rich richer

It exercised too much control over members of the Congress

It favored Northeastern states over Southern and Western states

Anonymous said...

From what I could gather, this past P&Z meeting followed the pattern of all the others in that W/S had the floor for about 90% of the time which they utilized very well to provide some answers, but in addition added a lot of propaganda for the viewing audience as to how nice everything is going to be and showing pictures of some of their other malls. The net was to limit the time that the commission members had to ask question or to have W/S answer questions raised that that very night.

As of yet, the commission has not had any of our town department heads present for their opinions or to answer commission and publics questions. It doesn't make sense for the commission to get their information fsecond hand from town department heads and other staff from the developer.

In addition, W/S was not prepared to make their presentaion on one of the 4 items on the agenda and this causes them to take up more time on the last public hearing scheduled for Nov 26, at 7:30. Why aren't they ready? How can the public have time to review and question their information on the very last night?

Because the applicant has not fullfilled their side of their responsiblity in a timely manner, has constantly changed what they intend to do, the public hearings should definitely be extended until W/S has finalized their plan and have satisfactorily answered the questions on that paln.

Anonymous said...

so Andrew Jackson closed down a powerful central financial insitutions because it didn;t grease the wheels of the future Confederate states? Seems like this is not a good argument from history , Tim....maybe if slavery had less capital it would have gone away without the bloodiest war in American history

Tim White said...

hmmm... I hadn't thought about that, but as I said I'm not an expert on central banking... and I'm certainly no historian (in other words, I hadn't made that connection). But considering that the central bank came back into existence in 1913 (??)... the civil war was 50 years past... so what was the need for reinstituting the central bank?

Anonymous said...

anon 6:19 Right on. I think the public should go first on Nov 26 and the P&Z should have more public meetings. They can reject this and W/S can come back. Why the heck should the Town be held hostage to this time line?

Tim White said...

The Cheshire Herald has a short note stating that sewer bills may be delayed by as much as two months, as the town is contemplating billing changes? Can yu tel us what they are referring to?

From the Town Manager (who by the way responded promptly... on Friday... I just didn't repost this in a timely manner... sorry.)

I recommended and the Council supported the appointment of consultant to perform a fiscal impact analysis of the WPCA. A consultant was recently hired and the first order of business is for the consultant to review the sewer use charge to determine a more equitable way to charge residential users and move away from the the flat fee currently charged to residential customers. This consultant will need at least a couple of months for this part of the project, and in the meantime the WPCA has decided to delay sending the bills out because if they were mailed in December as usual, they would have to be developed with the fixed rate for all residential customers.

for those of you who are keeping track... I don't remember the Council ever voting to hire a consultant for the WPCA... I think the funding is coming from the WPC fund.

Anonymous said...

Does anyone know how we can find out the campaign contribution list for all the local candidates?

Anonymous said...

We are hiring a consultant for sewers fees but the town is going to review the fiscal impact study by W/S. This makes no sense to me.

Tim White said...

well... the town chose Beta Group to review W/S' application. So there is some independence there.

Anonymous said...

I didn't think Beta Group's contract assignment included a review of the impact study. I thought it only included a review of the Milone and McBroom design work.

Tim:

It's critical that the TM or his staff is not the reviewer of this most important document. It needs a totally impartial reiew. Every dollar spent on this review is well worth it.

There will be a huge influx of new students not the crazy number of 11. Any estimate under 120 is too low. There is a lot of money to be made on selling our school system.