Council meeting 9/08
It was a surprisingly short meeting tonight. The only discussion seemed to be about the CYB concession stand at Bartlem Park (passed unanimously, DeCaprio absent, Altieri abstained). You may recall a few years ago the Town tried to get a private vendor to open a concession stand at Bartlem, but that went nowhere. Hopefully, this will work. CYB said the proceeds will be used for league activities, such as reducing the participation fees and field maintenance.
The other vote that got some discussion was the fireworks. It passed 5-2 (Ruocco & Sima opposed, Decaprio absent, Dill abstained). PZC member Woody Dawson spoke in favor of increasing the Council's proposed supplemental appropriation of $1400. But when it came for a vote, no one mentioned increasing the amount. If there had been five non-rubber stamp votes, I would've considered Woody's suggestion by eliminating the $14,000 being wasted on a new strategic plan... then spend some of that money on fireworks. Alas, there was no way that suggestion was getting anywhere tonight.
The only other part of the meeting that really jumped out at me was the TMs report. I had a few comments tonight:
1) It was about five years ago that then-Representative Al Adinolfi secured $225,000 in grant money for improvements to Bartlem Park. Five years and we learned tonight that the 90' diamond still isn't done! But the really sad thing is that if the Rubber Stampers had their way and continued ignoring it, I doubt anything would be done. As far as I can remember, I'm the only person who's been chasing on this issue for the past few years here in March 2007 and here in January 2008. Five years is ridiculous. But do you think Councilman Turf would ever say anything? Ha. The Rubber Stampers need to go.
2) When I was over at the Notch this weekend, someone suggested to me that the Town investigate if grant money was available for new locker rooms under the ADA fund. I passed that along to the TM to pass along to the Superintendent.
3) The most ridiculous thing I heard tonight was when I asked for a list of roads to be completed next year with the PMS we bought for $50,000. I was essentially told that the list of roads to be improved next year has not yet been determined. Huh? Isn't that why we spent $50,000 on PMS?! Oh well. Maybe I haven't been in government long enough to understand that we need to waste money to pretend we're accomplishing something. If reelected, perhaps I can then depart from reality and enter the alternate universe in which government operates.
I'll try to get some of that PMS video for tomorrow.
Tim White
4 comments:
Although they may not have a list of roads that will be repaired, have they discussed how they will use the info gathered by PMS to decide what roads will be repaired first?
Or will they wait till the election and find out what roads all those elected live on?
I can't believe that they would waste $50K to determine what roads need repaired, but don't have a specific plan on whether they will do those that are in the worst condition, the ones that are most traveled on, or the ones that more residents are complaining about.
Perhaps we should look at the roads all the developers are living on and see how they are.
Although they may not have a list of roads that will be repaired, have they discussed how they will use the info gathered by PMS to decide what roads will be repaired first?
IMO, this may be the only legitimate question still to be answered by the Council. Specifically, if some roads need reconstruction and others needs some minor maintenance... how much of the $1,000,000 goes into each bucket? The fiscal question should be answered by the Council, but the prioritization of roads should have been provided with the $50,000 PMS. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be the case. It still seems like business as usual... we've got some senior management in town that is simply incapable of doing the job well. And spending more money on various nonsense is used to paint over those shortcomings.
November can't come soon enough.
If they were hard pressed to prioritize road work before computers, what makes anyone think that with computers the same old workers will be any more effective? Before computerizing they needed to be able to do the work manually as a demonstration of their understanding of what needed to be done.
After the 50k on software we have workers, and no doubt more than a few in management who still can't get a simple job done. Time to stop blaming the technology and put the blame where it belongs, at the feet on management.
The 50k generated lots of smoke and bought another year of the status quo. Maybe more dump trucks will make things better too- - -
All we need to do to find out what roads need repair is ask the following people;
The mailmen, Cops, fire department, Campion Ambulance, pizza delivery folks, and the Mom's that drive their spoiled kids all over Town in a vain attempt to keep them getting bored.
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