Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Public Works garage expansion: money grows on trees!

At last night's brief meeting, Tim Slocum raised an interesting point. It related to the article in last week's Herald by Josh Morgan. Of most interest was:

Michelangelo said the project has "been planned for a number of years" and was originally approved with a $300,000 appropriations in the 1995 capital budget, but the project was continually "put on the back burner."

Michelangelo said there was only around $13,000 left in the garage expansion fund...


Yet some Advocates of Big Government wonder why taxpayers are skeptical of government? Some Advocates of Big Government can't fathom why taxpayers question if funds are misappropriated or misused?

Thankfully, Tim Slocum isn't a member of The Rubber Stamp Club. He asked the necessary questions last night:

What happened to the $287,000?

We're expecting to get an answer, though we're gonna have to wait for it.

The article continued by mentioning how the construction will be funded - $222,000 from the renovation and addition account and $112,000 from the environmental impact account.

Unreal. The money just disappears and reappears from nowhere.

I thank Tim Slocum and Tom Ruocco for following up on that. It's good to know there's at least a couple Council members that ask questions.

Tim White

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why wasn't out Budget Chairman asking that question?

Michaelangelo better have a good answer.

Anonymous said...

What happened to the $287,000??? Probably down the same black holes as all the billions and trillions of federal bailout dollars.

And these same people tell us they can “save money” by running the nation’s health care system. Maybe Obama can appoint Altieri as health care czar to ensure money gets wasted.

Anonymous said...

Alteri has been serving since 1995? Seems like it hasnt been that long. Or, are you blaming the guy for something that someone else did? Maybe you should look back to 1995/1996 to see what the major, unplanned, unanticipated project was that chewed up the money.

Anonymous said...

"What happened to the $287,000?"

So, about a quarter of a million appears to have gone missing about 14 years ago? In the grand scheme of things it's not that much if it was a one-time-only event. Just one little drip from a really big bucket.

Problem is, 1995 was, like 14 years ago now. Imagine if every year, more or less maybe a quarter of a million just kind of vanishes or gets re-appropriated but no one later can say with any authority when asked where it really went and why.

Now let's see, a quarter of a million per year for like 14 years, Well, non-compounded it's only $3.5 million. Those drips add up.

Doesn't the town conduct a thorough detailed financial audit on a regular basis which would track this kind of stuff?

Anonymous said...

the republicans were in charge of the town in 1995

Anonymous said...

Guess there is no reconciling what is appropriated vs what is spent??????????? Things are only going to get worse economically..what else will we learn??
See what Rell is doing??? Does Cheshire have any vacant land or buildings to sell?

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...
the republicans were in charge of the town in 1995

July 16, 2009 11:10 AM

So the republcans may not be as Godly as someone thinks. Proves that both parties are fiscally irresponsable and as guilty as the other when it comes to mismanagement.

Anonymous said...

To me it's the town manager who is responsible for where the money went. I do recall one of the R's on the current council asking the TM how the money held for capital projects gets reconciled and the TM answered, I believe, that the balances are reviewed every so many years (can't remember exactly how many). So it's his responsibility to answer where the money went.

Anonymous said...

If it was used for good reasons that's ok,but if there is no accounting of where it went then "Houston we have a problem".

Anonymous said...

"If it was used for good reasons that's ok"

Nice thought but we have to face the fact that it was appropriated for a specific task. The task was to be completed for a specific amount. The task was to be complete by a specific date.

But alas, here we sit, like 14 years after it was supposed to be spent on a specific task. We find out it wasn't spent on the specific task and no one seems to know where it is right now.

Come on folks, think about it, 14 years. Wow, 14 years is almost 1/2 of a working life time! I'd bet the average tenure of municipal department heads isn't even 14 years.

The municipal government which lost a quarter of a million dollar task for 14 years and is having memory problems has also been entrusted with building, maintaining, and operating a futuristic plastic hemisphered town pool that only bleeds money and is always in the unplanned maintenance mode.

Factions of this municipal government also want to more or less ram artificial turf down the throats of local tax payers under the guise of nicer playing fields requiring little or no planned maintenance. Some school officials claim the nice new field would be used by hundreds of non-school activities too. All for one nice fixed price more than 1/2 prepaid by some nice guy's state political slush fund.

Does anyone see a pattern here? November elections can't come soon enough this year.

Anonymous said...

Have to wonder if it was needed to begin with if it could wait (14) years...going to be a "TTBO" election (throw the bums out)

Anonymous said...

Did the town ever get the $60,000 from Brodach or is that just another gift to a developer who understands and works politics.

Anonymous said...

Did the town ever get the $60,000 from Brodach for the improvements required for his development or is it just another gift to him?

Anonymous said...

Before any more money is spent on the PW department, we need a new PW Director. J M was basically fired from his job in Oxford and got hired in Cheshire. He is well past his level of competancy and the sooner he goes the better.
Back in the 1990's we build a huge multi-bay building next to the town garage which was supposed to be for P&R "storage" of lawnmowers. It ended up with lunch room, showers and some office space.....more elaborate than the original plan.
Before we build anything else to support PW operations, perhaps we should think about privatizing some town functions so we would not need as many vehicles to fix in the first place. West Hartford has done a great job of that over the last several decades and it works.
But first, Dump Joe.