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October 26, 2008

Ruminations - 10/26/08

In no particular order (as I'm a bit behind here):

  • Nice to see that the overall hike in the Operational budget (i.e., no warrants just yet) was minimal - 0.36%.  However, I asked the question "Does that amount include the last year's warrants?"  Hmmm, small problem - that gives the budget a lot of headroom for "actual growth without numerical growth" as there were a number of warrants last year.
  • That said, who is going to play "find the boots" (from that old corporate expense report joke)?
  • Glad to see we got an budget EXCEL spreadsheet this year - makes some things much easier.
  • Am glad to see that the Potter Hill Road - the unused library property - will be bidded out (or, at least it looks like it so far).
  • Interesting time at the latest Selectmen meeting (yup!  Full room with overflow!).  It seems that whenever Joe shows up, an officer to escort him out of the meeting is soon to be seen.  Interesting too, that it seems that the Faye cousins seems to allude that not much of an effort has been expended in finding the heirs.  And it certainly looks like they were ticked.  I have my doubts that this issue of "now what do we do with the old Library" will neither be quiet or cheap.  My thought?  Since the Library Trustees decided to build the new building and that they knew about ramifications of moving out, perhaps they should be on the hook for the cost, rather than the Town taxpayers?  Some will most likely take umbrage at this notion, for all kinds of reasons, but shouldn't everything be on the table?  The Gilford Steamer 10/16 editorial labeled "Library Deceit?" was rather amusing - and pretty much spot on.
  • Speaking of the Library, looks like from Terry's post, somebody over there has their knickers in a knot.  I have to admit, I burst out laughing when I saw the graphic on Doug's post - and I agree with its sentiments.  Scope Creep is one of the biggest killers of projects - you start out with one thing and it just keeps growing until it is out of control.  Books, magazines, literary things - certainly part of a library mix.  A lot of the "projects" that I see, however, should be somewhere else.  WHY should electronic gaming be part of the library mission?  Or are they trying to turn themselves into THE Community Center (which I thought was supposed to be the domain of the new privately owned building going up next door?)? Unless they want to be part of the Parks and Recs budget?  And frankly, I don't believe that the proper role of local government for either department should include pasttimes that are better served at home - and not at taxpayer expense.
  • Well, football made it into the budget, and here, like clockwork, will be hockey.  I'm just dying to know when the Wavemaker swim team is going to make a pitch to get funded - pool, locker rooms, and lifeguard all included....
  • Ames Farm?  Their "neighbors" just making it seem that they just want to run them out of business (or at least hamstring them sufficiently so as to hasten that day).  Maybe it's just the curmudgeon in me (hey, I'm getting only enough!), but they knew about the Ames operation well before they moved into the area.  It seems to be the same thing as when people move into town and then complain about the plane traffic.  Or further west, move into a brand new subdivision, the wind shifts, and then they learn about the pig farm a up the road aways - and demand that the farm be shut down even though it's been there for decades.  My vote is for the Ames property.  Or if you don't like it, OFFER TO BUY the Ames property outright instead of "taking by regulation".
  • Juris lawsuit - I am not privy to ANY special or inside info.  That said, it seems to me like a play for $.  So far, unless he has video or audio recordings to the contrary (which may or may not be legal), he's only got a he said / they said case.  Like I blogged a while ago, it still seems to be a case of a bad political bet gone bad.  Yes, Juris and Boucher seemed to play the game so that John did not get elected (and then he may have led the charge for a firing), but publicly slagging your bosses on the radio and in the print media is not a long term job security strategy.  First Amendment?  Seems like they made no attempt to stop the actual speech, but it doesn't mean that they have to listen to it....
  • It will be interesting to see how the taxpayers take to the new Police Station - I'm thinking that this will make it onto the ballot in March.

Posted by Skip at 08:19 PM | | Comments (0)

BudComm meeting of 10/23/08

Once again, we met to go over the budget sub-committee results.  In this meeting, it was pretty much the Town Clerk / Tax Collector and the Planning and Land use.  Not a lot of controversy - no problem!

That said, I think that you will see in the below video that a number of the BudComm members are questionable on the Supervisors of the Checklist requests.  No, not on the need for space or for for computer equipment; rather, the request for a pay increase.  Pretty much all of us realize that the Selectmen and the School Board members get stipends - they are "in session" all year round and for quite a number of hours.  Upon hearing of the hours that the Supervisors recieved hourly pay, there were some raised eyebrows and furrowed brows - heck, we work pretty much the same number of hours (just condensed into a shorter time period) - and we serve the community for free.  It looks like the Selectmen are going to try to figure out some amount of stipend for each that would be "fair" - the problem is that the number of annual hours varies depending on how many elections there are in a year (sometimes only 1, sometimes 4) which determines how many hours will be needed.

I did note that the Daily Sun article said that some of the towns in NH do pay their Supervisors for their time. It is my understanding that only about one third of the towns in NH do so.

Anyways, to the video!

 

 

Posted by Skip at 07:34 PM | | Comments (0)

October 23, 2008

Library No Longer Supports Free Speech

cry baby

What happens when your local library promotes stupid things like the playing of video games? The Gilford Library wonders why it doesn’t get broad support from the community? Reading from the Library trustee minutes of recent, I see the trustees are in full marketing mode to repackage the video game program under a different name. It has finally become obvious to the trustees that the “gaming” program isn’t perceived as popular among the community as a whole. Unfortunately, they think its unpopularity is due to the name and not the fact that most parents won’t support video games. Aren’t most parents struggling to get their kids away from video games and open their minds to reading or outdoor activities (duh!)? This is all part of the library's apparent new mission to create “transformational effects” on the community.

Included in the minutes is an absurd complaint to the Budget Committee about one of our Budget Committee members for violating the code of ethics. This is where dumb gets dumber. Let me attempt to summarize. The library, who has a long history of drawing lines in the sand over free speech issues such as the overreaching Patriot Act, or filtering of pornographic media. Remember that library? They now want to halt the freedom of speech of a committee member for expressing his views on this blog site. Nowhere in the GilfordGrok post about the library’s nefarious activities does the author state that he is representing the Budget committee. He simply mentions that he is a “tax payer” and “BudCom member”.

Perhaps they may wish to blow the dust of a copy of the Bill of Rights and read Article 1. Speaking out against the government is exactly what the framers intended to protect, not urinating on a picture of Jesus, as some may think.

The dumber part of this story is the fact that Budcom subcommittee meetings are PUBLIC! Anyone can attend and in true BudCom fashion, public comments are always welcome. In fact, I can’t think of one occasion that the BudCom didn’t allow a citizen or Department head to speak. If this baseless charge is somehow allowed to stick, the infamous blogger can attend as will this GilfordGrok contributor. I’m looking forward to reviewing the cost of the “FREE” library and I’ll even bring the crying towel!

Posted by Terry S. at 04:58 PM | | Comments (0)

October 21, 2008

Interesting notation on Non-Profits

I guess Non-Profits no longer mean "low wages".  From Instapundit (emphasis mine):

YESTERDAY I MENTIONED THE GROWTH OF THE NONPROFIT SECTOR, and reader Toren Smith sends this story as a followup: Bay Area nonprofit executives rack up big salary gains:

Laurance Hoagland, chief investment officer of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, had the biggest paycheck in 2003 with a total of $738,094. Though that represents a 54 percent jump in cash compensation for Hoagland, it included a $215,000 retention bonus paid that year. Without that bonus, Hoagland would have ranked second on The List, earning exactly $1 less than the $523,095 paid to Richard Schlosberg, president of the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.

The San Francisco Business Times annual compensation survey of nonprofits and foundations found that 23 of the top 50 executives enjoyed double-digit compensation increases in their most recently available fiscal year. The survey is based on nonprofit's tax returns, which are publicly disclosed. The Business Times survey excludes hospitals and research institutes. . . . The San Francisco Symphony's musical director, Michael Tilson Thomas, does not appear on the list because he provides his services through a $1.5 million annual contract between the symphony and his corporation, MTT Inc. That's up from $1.4 million in 2002.

No starving artist, he. The nonprofit sector is huge and lucrative, but perceptions and scrutiny haven't caught up, though this article suggests that's beginning to change: "Daniel Borochoff, president of the Chicago-based charity watchdog group American Institute of Philanthropy, said there's a lot more scrutiny being paid to nonprofits, including an Internal Revenue Service review of 2,000 nonprofit groups as part of an investigation into compensation of nonprofit executives."

I had brought up the point last week that the non-profits that have been funded are not scrutinized at the local level to the same level as we do our Town departments. 

I was glad to see that the voters had the chance to decide which non-profits / social service organziations / NGOs they would and would not support via the warrant articles on the ballot last year. I think that while I would have rather have seen the NGOs kept on warrants, at least the Selectmen ONLY funded those that were approved.  

That said, I can see a push coming to expand the cost of local government by those agencies that were turned away from the trough. 

Amusingly, the push will be at the Gilford Voters to deliver charity via taxes, and pressure will be applied to both the Selectmen and the BudComm folks to acceed to this.  I really wish that push was to the idividual taxpayer instead.

Unfortunately, we already heard that it is too much trouble to do that....

Posted by Skip at 10:09 AM | | Comments (0)

BudComm meeting of 10/15/08

Once again, it is that time of the year here in Gilford - Budget season.  The Town Administration (new Town Admin Scott Dunn and new Finance Director Geoff Ruggles), along with the Selectmen (Connie Grant, Gus Benevides, and Kevin Hays) have worked with the department heads for this year's budget. 

Here is the recording of the latest BudComm meeting of last week (10/15/08).  It was going to be, I thought, a pretty cut and dried meeting.  However, the Welfare Director, Ericka Johnson, decided that she could get an ad hoc presentation for the CAP outside agency - something that I certainly did not appreciate.  Apparently, there is going to be an on-going movement by those agencies that were rejected by the voters last year

Philosophically, I am against this - property taxes are not the proper revenue source for these types of organizations, especially as (with CAP as a prime example) are already triple dipping at the County, State, and Federal Level.  Thus, you (my fellow taxpayers) and I, have already paid our "gift of charity" to these folks three times.  Now, they want to be paid a fourth time.

Anyways, more on that later.  For now, take a look at the video here:

 

 

Also, here is an EXCEL spreadsheet of the Gilford Budget (provided as is - more than likely, it will be updated over time) - click here to see or right click to download.

Posted by Skip at 09:19 AM | | Comments (0)

October 12, 2008

Sarah is coming to Laconia!

Sarah Palin

 McCain - Palin sign       Sarah Palin          Palin Power Button

!!!   Breaking   !!!

Just got the news from a VERY informed source (H/T: G) - Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin, Senator McCain's Vice-President running mate is coming to Laconia!

It's official now.  Sarah Palin will be at the Weirs on Wednesday directly in front of the Mt. Washing building.  It is open to the public starting at noon.  Expect long lines getting through the Secret Service so get here early.  This info can be posted on the 'Grok or elsewhere

Call if you have questions.

(H/T: Greg)

Details are sketchy right now - as I get more, I'll update this post.  So far:

Place: Down at the Weirs at the Mt. Washington building (the railroad depot).

Date: Wednesday, October 15.

Time: Noon

Parking: at the Weirs Drive-in (across the street)

Caution: attendees will be screen before getting "in the area" - and only 1 spot to do it.  Think lines....long lines....

More later!

Yippee!!!!
(cross posted at GraniteGrok)

Posted by Skip at 07:58 PM | | Comments (0)

October 02, 2008

A bad story only gets worse...

I felt I must post a followup to the story reported here on GilfordGrok about the distraught man who fell to his death after being shot by NYC police with a TASER. Heaping more bad news on an already sad story, the police Lietenant who ordered the use of the stun type weapon has committed suicide. Click here to read the story. Our condolences go to both families, naturally...

Posted by Doug at 05:28 PM | | Comments (0)