Monthly archives: April 2008

 

 

Theatrics

  • By: Cindy

Did any of you take drama in high school? I think some of the people who run this town must have majored in it, especially when it comes to this pool issue that has been talked about and talked about and done nothing about.

Now the Town Council wants a cost analysis to possibly replace the inflatable fart bag that surrounds this pool. GO TO MILFORD!!! IT IS 30 MILES (or less) AWAY FROM HERE. ASK THEM!!. THEY HAVE DONE ALL THE WORK FOR YOU!!

Do what Milford did. Turn over the pool to the YMCA. Go in on it with another town–i.e. the MILFORD ORANGE—YMCA. Privatize it. Call them immediately.

What should happen first is what I said in the candidates debate–PUT UP A SIGN telling people what is over there. That is why I call it the Area 51 Pool. It’s like–you are really not supposed to know what IS over there if you don’t live here. We, (the people who run this town, I mean really control it and put their clones in to go through the motions), don’t want certain people in their pool. What business do you know of, or any public entity or even private entity, that operates without a sign?

The only ones I know are places of shady repute!! PUT UP THAT SIGN!! “

“Oh the Boy Scouts are working on it” Working on it?? This sign has been in the “works” for over two years. What are they doing, placing one brush stroke every six months on the sign. How long does it take to make a sign???

The correct way would have been to put the pool into the high school. Supposedly there is a connection off of the CHS auditorium. The pool belongs in the school like most other towns have done. But you see, the drama majors had to show off. They weren’t going to be happy with a plain ho hum pool in the school. They had to show off–it is Cheshire–let us show everyone up. I believe our high school swim team deserves the best, and a pool in the high school would have been the best for them, not a pool with mold, and a bubble that looks like they ran the Kentucky Derby on top of it.

The sad fact is that people did not support this pool and by the looks of it are not going to support it. You see the attitude was, we won’t listen to the “average person.” We will just go ahead, ignore the fact that construction of the pool was defeated three times by the people, force it down your throat and then expect YOU the taxpayer to pay for it.

If you saw the post I had several months ago on the Milford Orange Y when they put up the retractable glass enclosure, in the body copy it says that when they had the inflatable bubble “volunteers–yes VOLUNTEERS put the bubble up and took it down. It mentions them in the first few sentences–”a group of VOLUNTEERS.”

But you won’t ever see that here because there is no limelight. It won’t get on the news, it isn’t show offy. I can bet we couldn’t get 10 people to volunteer to do this.

If you don’t believe me, here is the link to the article about Milford and Orange replacing their inflatable bubble with the polycarbonate retractable glass enclosure.

Click here

Now, I did some research on BC Place,which was the stadium in Vancouver,British Columbia, Canada that you saw in the You Tube video. Their inflatable roof tore and you see the tear getting bigger and bigger until finally the roof deflates.

Apparently, there is argument about whether the roof “deflated” from the tear or it was brought down under controlled conditions. I guess it is who you believe. The authorities claim it was deflated on purpose, but in the links I am providing you, there are people who claim that it would take four hours to “deflate” the bubble. It really looked like it came down pretty fast in the video.

Now BC place is the largest inflatable stadium roof in the world. It was completed in 1983 and was constructed for Expo “86. The roof is TEFLON. And that was the original roof until the tear in 2007.

They did have an advantage as far as longevity because this teflon roof was not put up and taken down every year. It was not retractable. Apparently it would take $20 million (Canadian) to replace the entire roof. The roof got the tear from 70 mile per hour winds and sleet. They did replace the panel almost immediately.

Click here for more facts on Air Supported Structures

Here is additional information on BC Place. It is noteworthy that this is the venue for the opening ceremonies of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games!!

Click here

And if you can’t get enough of inflatables, (no not that) ,here is an inflatable–CHURCH!!

Click here to enter the inflatable church.

To celebrate a new season–let’s play Baseball.

Click here to play

 

The Museum of Hoaxes

  • By: Cindy

This is a belated April Fools Day post that I never posted.

I LOVE hoaxes and practical jokes, but unfortunately you play with fire when you do them. I have gotten burned MANY TIMES!! Oh well. That is what this website is and you ALL FELL FOR IT!!!

Click here to enter the Museum of Hoaxes

Speaking of the inflatable pool bubble–this is what could happen and did happen in British Columbia, Canada.

Click here

 

"The Pig Book"

  • By: Cindy

I am providing a link to the Pig Book, which is a list of Federal Pork Barrel projects that are just too good to be true, but are. I thought this would be timely since we just finished up with our local budget here in Cheshire.

Click here for Pig Book

UPDATE ON THE MILL RATES FOR CT TOWNS:

I did not realize there was this ‘thing” called an equalized mill rate. This takes into consideration when a city or town had its last revaluation to make things even between all the towns. For example, Cheshire’s mill rate before revaluation could seem higher than Southington or Ansonia because they may have just gone through a revaluation. Not all of the cities or towns go through revaluation at the same time because there are only a few companies that perform this service.

Here is the CCM (Connecticut Conference of Municipalities) Equalized Mill Rate for Connecticut cities and towns.

Click here

 

Comments

  • By: Cindy

As I have told you all before, I have not had time to attend the public hearings on the budget because of a really hectic work schedule and health issues which are keeping me down and getting me down in plain English.

But I did get a call from some people who were interested in knowing what other towns mill rates are. Now I had a list from a few years ago when I started working on my latest book, entitled “Connecticut–169 Towns.” I hope to complete it by the end of the summer.

The Office of Policy and Management has the 06-07 grand list mill rate on their website, but good luck trying to download it. Does the state of Connecticut check how their information looks before they put it on their websites? Obviously not. A few years ago, I attempted to download an application from a State University and it had a virus on it!!! My husband who works for the State used to tell me all sorts of horror stories about software programs the state would spend millions on only to find out it did not work and scrap it!! And you think Cheshire wastes money!!

I’ll take you into his office so you can see brand new Dell laptops never even opened out of the box, lying around for a year or two and then scrapped!! And I don’t mean one or two of them. A roomful.

My husband TYPES, that is it —TYPES —and he has a  State issued laptop worth several thousand dollars!!

In fact, one doesn’t have to look that far in Cheshire to see state waste. Just drive down Jarvis Street near the Correctional Center. Do you see all of those trucks and vans parked in the lot right before Rt. 10? There must be a dozen of them. For God sakes, it looks like an auto dealership.

People waste money when it doesn’t belong to them. But how can some of our town council members identify with cutting back and belt tightening when one of them spent $14,000 to get themselves elected to the town council?

And as far as eliminating the one police officer position that ended up not being eliminated, well, as far I am concerned, you can have 500 police officers in Cheshire, but when there is an emergency and they are told to “wait” and not do anything, it doesn’t matter how many people you have on duty does it!!

A few years ago, Bridgeport reduced its crime from 110 murders a year in the late 80′s to less than 20, with 50 less officers!! If someone at the south end of town lets these people do police work, we won’t have a problem.

Another resident e-mailed me a copy of the cartoon of what looked like Michael Milone the Town Manager sitting behind a bunch of books or paperwork. In front of his desk there were three signs, “police union” “public works” and “library union” with the caption ” I thought the sign on my door said Town Managers Office not Complaint Department (sic).

Here again, wake up. You solve the police department issue with a POLICE COMMISSION!! No matter how I feel about Hawaii or Cheshire 5-0, and believe me, it has been trench warfare at times, we cannot have a demoralized police department ever!!

That affects public safety. Now I know you cannot please everyone, that is human nature and whenever there is a union there will be a grievance or two or three or even more. That is the nature of the beast. But, the Town Manager has to learn to DELEGATE. He is taking on way too much. It does not mean he is incompetent. There are many demands in todays society with workers. The issues are becoming more and more complex.

EXPAND THE POWERS OF THE PUBLIC SAFETY COMMISSION. Make it a part of Charter Revision. And no, the Charter is not the U.S. Constitution and should “not be touched.” If that were the case we would still have slavery, because that was part of “the constitution” at one time, and women would still not be voting now would we.

The Police Commission would handle any issues the Chief or Town Manager did not want to handle or could not handle. And if an officer wished to file a grievance, he or she could appear in front of the Police Commission and ask them to handle it if they did not feel comfortable with ONE person making a decision. Please Town Council take this into consideration. And next time I speak at a Town Council meeting, if I ever do again, I will make sure I load up my mouth with my chewing tobacco.

Click below for link to Office of Policy and Management web site. Type in “mill rate” in the box in the upper left hand corner and hit “go”

click here for link

 

A Waste of Money?

  • By: Cindy

As many of you know, I started following up on this municipal gas use issue that was brought up by Councilor White a few weeks ago. I also told you of a possible “mis-use” of mulch. The story was that mulch that was SUPPOSEDLY intended for the pool, got re-routed.

Now I contacted the Town Managers office recently asking this question. I did get a response from Arnett Talbot, the town managers executive assistant and public information officer.

Here is the response:

Cindy,

I checked on (company name omitted for the time being) – the Town has made two payments to them, totaling $1,190, for mulch at the Senior Center and McNamara Legion Field. They have not done any work at the pool. Please let me know if you have any further questions. Thanks!

Arnett

I mean this is not private information, so that is why I ran it. But the question is: why is the town buying mulch especially from an upscale landscaping company? Oh that’s right, we don’t search around for a competitive price. I forgot, isn’t Cheshire the “Bid Waiver Capital of Connecticut” (You can tell I am feeling a bit better).

It doesn’t seem like much but a thousand dollars here, a thousand dollars there–it adds up!!

You mean to tell me the Town of Cheshire that has every vehicle and piece of equipment under the sun does not have a wood chipper? You mean to tell me the town could not go through wooded town owned property, and chip fallen tree limbs into mulch? Is that asking too much? I guess so!!

Now speaking of cars and equipment, a few weeks ago, I got a call from a resident wanting to know why he keeps seeing the school buses parked at Stop and Shop or various other places and the drivers are just waiting.

Well, I contacted DATTCO Bus Company in Cheshire and the woman I spoke with was very informative. She told me they have down time between runs to the different schools, so instead of constantly driving from one school and then all the way across town to the bus lot and then all the way back to their next run, they pick a central point, which seems to be the back lot of Stop and Shop near the Waverly Restaurant. This makes sense and really is a smart move considering what fuel prices are these days. It is too bad that a more centrally located lot cannot be purchased but what they are doing now is fine.

Speaking of conserving fuel, Mr. Tim White might be interested to know that I actually saw a Smart Car today on Rt. 10 near I-691. It was yellow. The Smart Car is that tiny tiny car made by Mercedes Benz that has been a big hit in Europe and Canada and is finally making an entrance into this country. It is arriving at the right time. Just look at the gas prices.

And one more thing before I go:

I just got a phone call from Mr. Giovanni DePaolo, of the state agency that licenses ambulances so we are still in the race here. Believe me, even if it is well intentioned, there could be SERIOUS consequences if a person does not use the right wording in front of a child. The state takes it very seriously.

Again, if the president of the ambulance company had spoken to me when I called back in DECEMBER of 2007, it is now April 2008 and my call has not been returned, this issue would die out. But let us see what happens. Hopefully a lesson learned for all and nothing bad. That is my intention.

Now as I told you last night, I will not be posting all the time. I will have guest posters because I still am stressed and feel bummed out. But thanks again to all the people who called to support me. That is the reason I am posting tonight because of you.

And speaking of the smart car, I think our town needs to get smart, (no pun intended) and purchase a few of these. Then when a car might go out of state, (I said MIGHT) at least you will get good gas mileage. And if you don’t want to get a smart car because it is not four wheel drive, then get a RAV 4 instead of a gas guzzling Ford Explorer for God’s sake.

Speaking of gas guzzlers, when I was at the hair salon a few weeks ago, someone there told me they saw a white Hummer parked in the Everybody’s parking lot that said “Police.” I told this person I did not THINK our police department had a Hummer. Talk about arrogant. That is insane!!

Oh and thanks to Councilor White for posting that e mail from a year ago from another town councilor discussing a town issue and obviously eliciting comments by phrasing some of the wording in a form of a question

Can you spell Freedom of Information? or Illegal? Thank you!! See you soon.

Ferrari vs Smart Car