When their lips are moving...
Q: How do you know a Gilford [politician] [bureaucrat] [special-interest water carrier] is being untruthful?
A: When they tell us that their [insert scheme du-jour here] "won't EVER cost the taxpayers a dime."
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That's right- when you hear those words, hang on to your wallets because they're lickin' their chops in anticipation of the day when the truth-- the fact that the taxpayers WILL pay-- is revealed. Look at the "gift" of the Meadows. As it grows and develops, the costs will continue to escalate. While the gift-givers laughed with their big tax-deductions all the way to the bank, the hapless taxpayers have been left holding the proverbial "bag" ever since.
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Now we have the football program. "Over my dead body!" announced one prominent supporter of the "Friends of Football" as they were told by skeptics that they didn't believe it would remain cost-free to the taxpayers of Gilford. As the perpetrators told stories that they must have known to be untrue at the time, ostracizing critics who predicted future costs shifted onto the backs of the town's property owners, their co-conspirators on the school board promised the only way that such a change would be permitted would be by a vote of the people via warrant article. Well, that was then...
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Fast-forward to this week. According to the ever- smarmy Chairman of the school board, Derek Thomlinson, the voters are too stupid to vote on such things. Besides, it's really not much money. (Let me repeat again the words of a prominent (dead?) resident:"Over my dead body, will this cost the taxpayers a dime") Michael Kitch reports in the Laconia Daily Sun
...Thomlinson, the chairman of the School Board, stressed that the funding for football amounted to 0.08 percent of the high school budget. He said that the board considered drafting a warrant article, but reached a "concensus decision" that because the sum was relatively small and offset by other revenues as a warrant article could be confusing to voters.
The Citizen notes the same,
Tomlinson said the reason the School Board chose to include the program in its budget is because members felt a warrant article might be confusing for taxpayers who already must vote on a number of warrant articles, explaining that they might inadvertently vote against the measure.
Of course. If it were to fail, it wouldn't be because the stupid voters OPPOSED it, or anything... I always like that extremely rare instance when these people actually speak the truth-- this is a good example, as it illustrates what Thomlinson really feels about Gilford's voters. These same voters that are too dumb to know the difference between a football program and the zoning amendments are the same ones that elect him over and over again. Go figure. Maybe they ought to vote for someone else the next time his time comes up...
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What's equally sad is the fact that, knowing all of this, certain budget committee members caved and allowed these people the final victory in their underhanded plot to trick the taxpayers of Gilford into funding football. Despite there being no threat of the program ending if it remained privately funded, they voted YES when it came time.
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Now that the school district will control the program, I predict that within a couple of years, the entrenched athletic director's regime will drive out the original program's supporters, replacing them with their own favored, (PAID) people. The irony will be rich indeed-- the very people who hatched the original underhanded scheme will be ousted by the very same players that they themselves enabled.
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And now, ladies and gentlemen, comes the next FREE GIFT: A BRAND NEW LIBRARY!
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"Don't worry Charlie Brown, I PROMISE I won't pull the football away this time. I'll hold it for you. Go ahead... kick it! TRUST ME!"
Comments
This exemplifies what is wrong with local government:
1) Those in government always think that they can do whatever needs to be done better than private individuals or organizations can. In this belief they are almost always wrong.
2) The elite think they know better what we need than we, the voters, do. In Laconia we NEED a new middle school, don't you know?
3) Because they are convinced they know better than we do, they seem to believe that deceptive means to get what they want are acceptable. This isn't limited to local government either. Witness the fact that the "temporary" NH prison in Laconia is still here.
4) Governmental officials have little trouble being generous with money that isn't theirs.
Posted by: Jenny | December 29, 2006 11:44 AM