Tuesday, February 09, 2010

Council meeting & open forum

Tonight's Council meeting was unbelievably brief. I think we adjourned by 9:30pm.

Any comments?

Tim White

UPDATE: Forgot to mention... senior tax freeze passed 8-1 (White opposed) and the senior tax credits passed unanimously. And thanks Breach for explaining some of the largely unforeseen problems with US tax policy. The whole thing needs to be simplified. And with regard to union contracts, there was no executive session and no contract votes either. I understand that - of the five town unions - the contracts may get votes next Tuesday... when the Council is scheduled to discuss the Yankee Gas pipeline with the PBC, Energy, Inland Wetlands, etc.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Since I don't have Cox, I couldn't see it. Any word on if they have come to an agreeement to put it on ATT Uverse yet?? I know they were working on it.

tim white said...

shoot... I totally forgot to ask about that. I will follow up though.

Anonymous said...

Thanks Tim, I would appreciate it.

tim white said...

I feel it's important. And it's also one of those things that no one else will probably bother chasing... like my request tonight to get the DPW to:

1) recommend to the Council the criteria used in prioritizing sidewalk improvements, then

2) recommend to the Council the list of sidewalk priorities.

When I did that tonight, the response was kind of like... "well, prioritizing sidewalks is the job of the Council."

And it's such comments that drive me batty. I mean, I understand deferring to your boss. But as I said, I'd trust professional staff more than 9 politicians when it comes to prioritizing sidewalks... though as I've made clear, I do have concerns with the DPW... but that's a different story.

Anonymous said...

Sounds like DPW management is being self-defensive and trying to avoid any criticism by saying "you tell us what to do."

But didn't DPW already prioritize sidewalk repairs? And wasn't a consultant involved?

So the next step is for DPW to explain what criteria were used to prioritize sidewalks, and/or come up with new criteria and priorities. And if necessary, the Council should order them to do so.

MN said...

I applaud the TC for having the forsight to realize that the senior property tax relief program is a win, win for the town and the seniors.

Anonymous said...

I don't understand the position of PW relative to the sidewalks. It is certainly any easy task to prioritize repairs - the potential injury/liability sections obviously need to be done first before someone gets hurt. These things and others are no-brainers and need to be done by the respective Town departments. We don't need "Senator Pothole" to have to intervene to get it done. And then the other side of the issue is the occasional school board or town council member who tries to micro-manage, when the administrators have it perfectly well under control.

tim white said...

7:52... you're comment has an underlying assumption: good management.

Here's my Oct 2009 campaign platform's first statement:

deal with the Town's failed management, including in public works

Anonymous said...

Maybe you can ask why the roads were a mess Thursday afternoon from the "storm that wasnt". Rt 10 was actually drying out but the second you turned onto a town road, you slid all over the place. I was watching town trucks driving all over town with the plows up and the sanders turned off. How many accidents were there? This public works is rediculous!! Cant plow a road, cant build a wall, cant fix a road, CANT CANT CANT