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Health & Fitness

DISNEYLAND and FOXWOODS at Town Hall!

Where's our money going?

    I am amazed ... the newspaper’s articles on “schools look for uses for surplus $” and the report of the Selectmen’s Town Manager evaluation leave the taxpayer hanging out to dry!  Each indicates that taxes should be rendered to meet  wishes.  One member of the Board took exception to my previous use of the industry term “slush fund” for this money.  The school bond issue IS to be spent as the School Committee feels appropriate, and not necessarily as the issue was presented to Town Meeting and the voter.  This “surplus”, or “unspent balance” will not be returned to the voter.  I am reminded that the April 7th Building Committee minutes states that Mr. Yukna, the Chair, stated that after receipt of the bids, $6.2 million remains in the contingency fund rather than the initial $1.1 million.  There is of course no mention of the screw-up on the ceramic tile in the building requiring spending hundreds of thousand of dollars, which in my opinion should have been an insurance settlement!  The presentation to Town Meeting spelled out what is planned to be done with the Bond money ... where has this money gone? especially the five million and without Town Meeting authorization!  Perhaps we should have waited for the bids, and voted $5 million less!
    The Selectmen’s evaluation report had moments of disturbing memory; that of Daley in Chicago, Curley in Boston, and Tammany Hall in New York with their comments on the intimidation of employees to attend Town Meeting and to vote on his initiatives.  It should be obvious why the Town Manager doesn’t want a ballot issue on the Town Hall ... he doesn’t want any full taxpayer statement!  They also note he is a “solid communicator” and should cease when the point is made.  They skip over the issue that when he doesn’t wish to communicate, as with the “request for information” statutory issue, he merely states that there is no record, or “not an actual record” or quotes statutes.  On one statutory request for the snow and ice transfer (some $450,000) he quoted the statute again, to justify his total disregard of that statute.  The statute states that he can transfer funds with the approval “by the town manager and the advisory committee”.  It says “AND”!  I asked the AdCom in session whether they had approved such a request.  They said and their minutes confirm that no such request was made or voted!
    The Selectmen state he negotiated ZERO percent raises this year ... two of the four non-school agreements already had a ONE percent raise included for the first year, this is not ZERO!  They seem to compliment him for “expanding revenues” but on whose back?  Taxes have been raised and fees have been increased as “these are not taxes”; but as an example, the ambulance increase “will be paid by the insurance companies”, and of course not passed on to us as a premium increase!  Even the Chair commented, “What you have is what we spend.”  And the article closes that the “board expects to see a reduction in overtime costs ... ” this coming year.  How?  We are putting this problem off for a year by running a spread sheet to determine what vacation and sick time abuses are occurring.  This was the only thing broadcast from the open session and the newspaper report so the employees have been warned.  NOTHING ELSE!  By July 2012 we might have forgotten the issue.  After the warning why not spread sheet the last two years of documented costs to find the alleged abuses?  The real issue is the 28,000 hours used beyond the departments normal 60,000+ annual regular hours, and that some employees average 80 hour weeks yearly!  Yes, let’s look at vacation and sick time abuse (some $20,000 a year as stated at the meeting) but not to investigate the $1.3 million TOTAL for town overtime is ridiculous!  And spending $3 million more for Town Hall repairs is irresponsible!  More later.
     We don’t need gaming; we have our own DISNEYLAND and FOXWOODS at Town Hall!

Dick Heydecker, 63 Grove Street, 543-9412

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