MRJ on hotWatergate finale (hWg 19)

The MRJs Stacy Graham Hunt offers this take on last night's vote on hotWatergate:

"The whole process was garbage, and we need to go back and do something different," said Councilman James Sima, who voted against the proposal along with Tim White and Tom Ruocco.

Jimmy was absolutely right.

On the flipside though:

Councilwomen Laura DeCaprio and Elizabeth Esty attributed the long process to unintentional mistakes made in Town Hall.

With a closing:

Now that the project has been awarded, Town Manager Michael Milone, has identified the weaknesses in this process and hopes the new financial software system that the town is expected to receive, will prevent any more processes like this one.

And for anyone who missed it, here's my condensed version of the above:

Town Hall screws up the project. The Rubber Stampers say "tsk, tsk. There must be consequences for this... a-ha! We'll raise taxes!"

And taxes will go up because we:

1) wasted $70,000 between the lowest 1st bid and the lowest 3rd bid;

2) will have unnecessary attorneys' fees ($??)

3) will buy new contracting software that we had not planned on buying ($3,000 for software + training + an opportunity cost of efficiencies missed by not buying the originally planned software)

But for some additional explanation on how to define Rubber Stamping, please read Nancy Pelosi's September 29, 2006 blog post that was published on The Hill. Cheshire's own Democratic Rubber Stamp Council would make the Republican Rubber Stamp Congress proud! Just look at some of their achievements:

1) From the unsubstantiated "fund balance policy" that costs millions of dollars over the past few years and an additional $90,000 each year (going forward)... to wasting $14,000 on another strategic plan...

2) from the $34,000 to be spent on travel & entertainment conferences & seminars... to the $153,000 on "cratered" financial software...

3) from the $430,000 annual subsidy for the pool... to the inaction on performance contracting...

4) from their new found love of the linear park... to the continuing unfair and unequal treatment of non-major party political candidates...

make no mistake... the administration says "jump" and the Democratic Rubber Stamp Council says "how high?!" And this won't change with the present Council composition. Going back more than a year, I tried to explain my concerns to the Council "leadership." But as was explained on April 3, 2008:

Tim White