Thursday, November 19, 2009

BOE to vote on turf tonight

The BOE was supposed to vote on the turf tonight. Anyone know the outcome?

Tim White

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11 comments:

Breachway said...

It passed. Another symbolic vote...I will say it again. I am not against upgrading the playing field but you need to have a solid plan with solid numbers and funding. I am disappointed Slocum offered the 50% option. 50% of what...no one knows. So really he is offering up the town to back 50% of an unknown number..is he ready to approve 200k, 400k, what?..i hope his next trick is better than this one.

November 20, 2009 8:29 AM
mcjk said...

I agree Breachway, not a good move on TS's part. Maybe he will opine as he visits this blog from time to time.

Tim White if TS's idea was brought forth by the Dems and it based on partisan lines, me thinks you would be up in arms. Can you shed some light on your level of critisism on this. I would guess that you and the other Republicans would have discussed this before the meeting.

Are we missing something?

November 20, 2009 10:00 AM
mcjk said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
November 20, 2009 10:16 AM
Anonymous said...

Oddly enough the turf was not even listed on the agenda but Behrer squeezed it in under "new business" even though it's not new. So much for that 2/3 vote required to add something to the agenda.

They never did like following the rules.

November 20, 2009 3:47 PM
Anonymous said...

If this turf goes through I'm sure many are wondering how the replacement of it will be paid for. Behrer said at the Oct. meeting that replacement would be around $600,000. Then at the TC meeting he threw out a new number of $450,000 and he estimated $160,000 in income and $101,000 in maintenance savings, leaving $189,000 add'l money needed for replacement.
Clearly these numbers are just guesses.

At the BoE meeting, Mr. Daly spoke about who should maintain the field and he mentioned the Playground in the Park as an example. He said the playground was mostly fundraised but it is the town who maintains it, repairs, etc. So it seems CLEAR to me that he is suggesting that the BOE (since it's a school field) will be expected to maintain, repair, & replace the turf field.

So to make the claim that no taxpayer's money is involved is ridiculous.

November 20, 2009 4:12 PM
Anonymous said...

Also, Behrer is saying that the current grass field costs $15955/year to maintain. He says the turf field would cost only $3300 to maintain. This supposed $12,700/year saving in the BoE maintenance account can be put towards the replacement of the turf, says Behrer.
So does anyone see this the way I see it - Sounds like the BoE still has to "budget" the $16,000 ($3300 will be the supposed cost to maintain the turf, and $12,700 will be put into some other "replacement" account.

Shouldn't it be that the overall BoE budget should be "reduced" by $12,700? If you're calling it a "savings" then it should be. It shouldn't be just putting one chunk of money in one account and the other chunk in another account. That's not a savings.

November 20, 2009 4:22 PM
Anonymous said...

This whole process is like putting the cart before the horse. The new TC should start this process from the begining. If there is merit the turf will move foward and be approved by "All" of the people in a townwide referendum. These projects that are started by grassroot organizations always seem to cost us more and are not well thought out for future needs, upkeep,and costs to replace. Let's start from the begining and do all the projects right . Only when we do this "all" will benefit from advoiding short-changing the project and receiving the proper support from all the people in town.

November 20, 2009 5:39 PM
Anonymous said...

I think the new council should hold off on this project. They should at least wait for the State's safety study to be completed. After that, if it's deemed safe, then put it out as a referendum question. Let the people of Cheshire decide if it's something they all want.

November 20, 2009 10:25 PM
tim white said...

Tim White if TS's idea was brought forth by the Dems and it based on partisan lines, me thinks you would be up in arms. Can you shed some light on your level of critisism on this. I would guess that you and the other Republicans would have discussed this before the meeting. Are we missing something?

Actually, Tim Slocum's motion caught me by surprise.

As for me being up in arms if a Democrat raised the idea... nah. I feel the Council should be focused on the police, pool and other personnel issues. As I said in the campaign, the Council needs to set priorities. The turf is not a priority. So I'm not going to take a lot of time during meetings discussing it. And as for me discussing it here... I try to write about a variety of things to make the blog interesting to lots of people.

And I know a lot of people in town like to talk about the turf. So I write about it (also recognizing that I'll usually get useful information on both sides of the debate). But consider, I also talk about monetary policy and the Fed. And you can see how much people talk about that... ha! But I still discuss it here... hoping that, in a small way, it will begin to increase public awareness... about what I see as the single biggest issue facing America.

November 21, 2009 12:03 AM
Anonymous said...

Rumor has it that a petition is going around collecting signatures from those residents opposed to the turf project. Has anyone seen it? If it exists, it should be presented to the town council in the next 6 months. IMO.

November 21, 2009 12:23 PM
Anonymous said...

I think the "TURF COMMITTEE" receives an "INC" for this report.

November 21, 2009 8:42 PM

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