GilfordGrok

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A petition with 65 signatures has been delivered to the Selectmen's office, effectively stopping their plan for a sweetheart deal with the non-profit Village Knolls group-- at least until the voters have their say at a special Town Meeting.

Here is the language of the petition:

As provided in RSA 41:14-a, and pursuant to RSA 39:3, we the undersigned registered voters of the Town of Gilford request the Board of Selectmen call a special Town Meeting to vote on “the proposed sale” of Town-owned land on 43 Potter Hill Road. We believe that the land must be sold as quickly as possible, without any special conditions favoring specific organizations, to a qualified buyer that submits the highest sealed bid offer.

The opposition consists of two camps: Those who don't wish to promote more tax-free or tax exempt subsets of citizens here in Gilford-- folks that won't feel the full impact of spending decisions made on voting day; and those that believe the village is already crowded enough in the area occupied by the parcel in question, and are concerned about the heavy impact of another multi-unit development.

Now we wait for the Selectmen to schedule the meeting. Waiting until the next annual meeting is NOT an option, by the way...

Posted by Doug at 03:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by Doug at 07:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I still am marveling at the amendment that Dick Campbell offered on the #29 - The Petition Warrant to abolish the BudComm that is accountable to the voters and replace it with one that was responsible only to the Selectmen.  As worded, it had NO responsibility to the School Board.

Basically, this was a change from being a tool of the legislative branch (the voters) for actual change as needed to a strictly advisory role to the executive branch (the Selectmen) that could dismiss any recommendations without cause.  Appointments would strictly have been the domain of the Selectmen.

Mr. Campbell's amendment tickled the fancy of this engineer - a simple and elegant change (and above all, engineers love simple and elegant).  His offer?  Just delete anything past the mention of the RSA that allowed the BudComm to be deleted. 

Which also deleted the pseudo-BudComm entirely. 

Thus, in my mind, it also accomplished the goal of bringing the conflict into more and sharper relief - have a BudComm or no BudComm at all.  Nothing in the middle, and certainly got rid of the toothless version of the BudComm that might have swayed some that failed to think the amendment through a number of scenarios (including the one where the Selectmen and School Board might be at odds over some power struggle, and the Selectmen could take advantage of the SB by manipulating the makeup of the pseudo-BudComm (hey, worse things have happened in politics, right?  This would be rather tame in comparison to some political shenanigans).

I also thought it amusing when Phil Arel (I guess the author of the Warrant and certainly a signatory to it) hotly disputed the right and legality of Mr. Campbell to make the motion to amend his Warrant.  While not going to the level of being apoplectic, it was obvious that he realized the ramifications of what the amendment would do - pretty much doom a vote for it.  Peter Milham, the Moderator, made the correct ruling (later backed up and proved right) by allowing it.
 

And it continued to be amusing.  Because of the "closeness" of the voice vote, Peter Millham asked for a "stand up vote' to be done and asked if there a few folks would be willing to count the standees.  When I noticed that not enough offered their assistance, I raised my hand. 

Joe Wernig (sp?) did get a tad upset by shouting "But he's on the Budget Committee", trying to make the implication that I would not be honest in doing the count since it had to do with the BudComm.  Sure thing! Right! Even if I was the type that would be willing to cheat (no, I'm not), did he really believe that with a few hundred people watching that I'd be stupid enough to even try?  Would it not be obvious that someone supporting the Warrant be checking my counting anyways?

It was amusing to hear, again, Mr. Millham step up and say "I think it is fair to say that he can count straight".  Mr. Wernig became quiet.

And the amendment passed. 

Posted by Skip at 08:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Yet another biz trip....a little bit to time to do a bit more blogging.

This time, the Laconia Daily Sun's account (Feb 9) when it quoted Lou Athenas Jr.:

Football is a wonderful thing for this community...it is now time for the entire community to offer its support.

No doubt, football is a good thing, and does great things for the kids - not only does it give the kids an after school activity (something that Leo Sanfacon made quite clear that we all HAVE to do during the Parks and Rec review) but it does teach them life lessons.

I just don't agree that then entire community believes that it has to agree with Mr. Athenas's belief.  Nor do I believe that everyone is so enamored with the way that it has been done either.   Certainly, not former School Board member Kevin Hayes or the former School Board Chair Jim Annis either! However, we will find out on March 13th when the entire Village has the chance to vote.

We shall see.

On the put-back of the monies deleted from the staff benefits?  Tom Chase did do a comparison of 100% payment by other towns - my question to him is 100% of...what?  Relying solely on the percentage of who pays what is not sufficient for the discussion.  One has to know what the plan costs taxpayers and employees too!  Just stating the provider of the plan (BCBS, Pilgrim, et al) is not sufficient either, as each offers a variety of plans at different costs).

Yes, I did sit on my hands during the meeting.  Consider this:

• The School Board wanted to switch to a lesser cost plan - which they did.  Fair enough - The original plan had taxpayers picking up $7K of the cost of that plan - a family's portion could be much more than that.

• "Great!" was my response when I first heard that.

• Problem!  Go ahead, ask the School Board what the cost of the new plan is.  Nothing for the employee, so you know who is picking up the entire $18K tab (remember, I'm in Chicago as I write this, so if the exact number is off, I apologize....but the order magnitude is right).

This is a $250% increase to the taxpayer...and this is why I was against having the taxpayer on the hook for the whole thing!

• At the meeting when the BudComm decided that the expense (and the attendant fairness issue of  taxpayers shouldering the entire burden), Paul Blandford passed out a sheet showing what the impact would be on those support staff that would have to pay either $5/week or $10/week (single or family) payment towards their healthcare plan.

He lamented that this would, in effect, be a pay cut. 

Yet, not once at any time in this debate did I hear any School Board member lament the implicit pay cut that the taxpayers will have to take in order to fund this huge economic benefit to these employees (e.g., a support staff earning $16K with an $18K healthcare plan costs the taxpayer $34K).

Not once.  For the  employees, yes.  The taxpayer, no.  Not once.

So I ask - who is the School Board representing (in this area) - the employees, or the taxpayers?  And ask yourself, who should they be representing?

Go ahead - I urge you,  all of you, go to the SAU office (Town Hall building on the back side, bottom floor) and request what is public information - salaries and benefit costs of the SAU employees!

Anyways, back to the meeting results.  So, the BudComm decided to rescind its blessing on the SB budget.  Why?  It should be rather simple, shouldn't it?  If we didn't agree with those monies in the budget before, why should we now?  We voted, 7-3, for our prepared budget....and not the SB budget.

And before some people get bent out of shape ("what about the NGO money put back into the Town budget!"), part of the reason why we continued to support the Town budget was:

• Over the years, there is a history of putting NGO monies back into the budget.
• The members also realized that the Selectmen and Sr. Town Management were willing to work with the BudComm and that they did accomplish some major changes that will benefit the taxpayers in years to come.
  

In my opinion, the School Board offered nothing except "we'll look at it in the future"; compared to the Selectmen, there was no sense of compromise on the part of the School Board.  In effect, the insistence was that NOTHING could be cut.  This permeated all of the discussions and IMHO, the BudComm took this into account in its vote.

One good example is the Warrant Article that the BudComm is not recommending.  Once the BudComm had examined and discussed the Article, the School Board was asked to re-word it as it was overly broad (originally, it was described as being needed to redo the control system for the HVAC system).  It was resubmitted the following week with no substantial changes - the School Board said that while it was discussed, they felt that it needed no changes. 

Note: I just cannot let this pass - when the article was split between page 1 and page 6, the subhead on page 6 was "Budget Committee rejects will of 155-58 majority".  This is true ONLY if one considered that this was the end-all-be-all meeting.  Pre-SB2, it would have been.  Now, with SB2, it is not.  And it is for that SB2 vote that we changed our recommendation on the School Board's budget. Then, the majority of voters will have spoken

And unlike Leo Sanfacon who publicly stated  at one of the Deliberative Meetings [paraphrased] that SB2 was the worst thing that ever came to Gilford, I think it is one of the best things that the voters have ever done.  Participation is up and now everyone has a deciding vote on this issues and candidates - no longer can people simply out-wait or out-last those that do not agree with them and then vote on items when they know that they own the mindshare of the now-remaining majority.

Posted by Skip at 08:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Well, THAT was interesting!

I attended the Town Meeting Tuesday nite.  Well, a lot of it was "housekeeping", especially in terms of the Planning and Land Use folks wanting to update a bunch of articles (and yes, we will be posting them up here!).  And then there were a couple articles that really weren't in that category.

Best thing, however, was sitting with DCE of Weekend Pundits (who was a guest on MTNP this past Saturday) and the WP Dad during the whole thing.  And, to be honest, I appreciated his words in support of the BudComm (and I did not know that he was going to speak beforehand either).

Certainly, almost everyone on the BudComm expected to see the NGO (Non-Governmental Organizations) monies put back in.  What the BudComm had done was reduced the original amount of arond $103K by almost $14K.  As Dick Hickok said, it is not because the the BudComm members thought that they were not necessary.  Rather, these are non-profits and the members felt that they  should be supported by individuals and not by government taxation.  The only exception is when there is an actual pay-for-service arrangement as there is with the Humane Society for animal control.

I agree with that sentiment.  I have other charities that I give to and really do not wish my TAX money going to those particular organizations.  Nothing personal, I just have others with which I'd rather give my money to.  Thus, I agreed with Doug and with Neil Flagherity (sp? Sorry!).

Those that were in favor all used the phrase "quality of life".  Fine by me; they are entitled to their opinion, but I am entitled to mine.  My disagreement is not in that these services aren't needed by some, but forcing your fellow citizens that may ever wish to give money to these NGOs to do so is not right. If all these folks felt that it was so important that these organizations receive funding, why won't they all band together and fund raise for them privately?  What is so wrong with that idea or philosophy?  Why must donations be coerced from all by the force of involuntary government taxation? 

NH used to be known for its individualism and self-reliance.  When bad things happened, relatives, friends, and communities would band together to help out....but on a voluntary basis - by doing so via taxation, it is forced. 

The numbers: at $103K total and 7,400 residents, that is an involuntary contribution of almost $14 / person for all of the NGO contributions by the Village.

I'll go stereotypical for a moment with this.  One definition of a Liberal is one who has no problem in spending someone else's money if it is for "the common good", Conservatives (those misers!) prefer to let people keep their own money and let individuals spend it the way that they want to.  And yet, it seems that people would be surprised by the answer to the question of "Who gives more - Liberals or Conservatives?"  See here for the answer and scroll down to 12/02/06 and listen to Dr. Arthur Brooks in Hour 2.  Dr. Brooks also has found a positive relationship to governmental support of NGOs and private charitable giving - as governmental monies go up, private contributions go down.  Not only that, but when government steps in, volunteerism also goes down, leading to a lessening of the public participation overall (and not just in the area of the charitable organizations).

Let's change the scenario a bit for thoughtful contemplation: suppose the overwhelming sentiment was that the Town should support the NRA as it has wonderful programs for youth and women.  Would those that are so willing to send someone else's forced donation to the above NGOs be as willing if those funds were targeted for the National Rifle Association?

No, I didn't think so. And not because they teach self-defense in a way that many disagree with.  Or really, that is the point.

More later....

Posted by Skip at 08:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)