Several months ago, Town Council member Tim White brought up a VERY important issue in this town and every town for that matter–municipal gas usage and municipal take home vehicles. Now Tim White Listens actually lists the number of take home vehicles: Building Department-1; Parks and Rec Department-2; Police Department-6; Fire Department-6 and Public Works-7 for a total of 22 take home vehicles.

Now, as you know, I have backed up Tim many times on this municipal gas use and take home vehicle issue. I know it is policy in every town to have on call high ranking municipal officials being able to use town vehicles 24-7 in the event of an “emergency” but I think it extends way too far down the line in Cheshire and most other municipalities.

I don’t believe in take home vehicles AT ALL!! We have arguments in our home about this all the time. My spouse thinks the Police and Fire Chiefs should have take home vehicles. I don’t. But that is where we differ. I think it is a waste of money.

And as far as this municipal gas use goes, I ain’t buying that “performance “at the March budget hearings. “Oh we are documenting”–come on!!

We may know how much gas is being dispensed, but whom is it being dispensed to?? And unless we have GPS on the town vehicles, besides the snowplows which have that tracking system, we don’t know where these cars are going.  Let us ask it straight up–DID A TOWN CAR GO TO VERMONT???

Several months ago, I actually went in front of the Town Council and addressed the municipal gas usage. I told the Council about a town in Wisconsin that uses a “gas card” and has their employees fill up at a regular gas station. In order to use the “gas card” the municipal employee, (police or civilian) must put in the VIN number of the vehicle and its’ odometer reading.

Well, I found a few towns in Connecticut that have the gas use policy. The first one, (my favorite town Trumbull), put out quite a report last year on their take home vehicles.

Click here for Trumbull Take Home Vehicle Report.

Another town that has addressed this take home vehicle and municipal gas use issue is Ridgefield, in lower Fairfield County with a population of approximately 22,000, slightly smaller than Cheshire,

Ridgefield also has a system to monitor municipal employee gas usage called “gasboy.”

Link to Ridgefield’s website. Take Home Policy is Agenda Item # 8

The “Gasboy” municipal vehicle gas use monitoring system

As some of you might have noticed, under WORDTUBE, I did update the “Cheshire:Then and Now” series I have been doing over the past few months. I added photos of the old and new police station. I believe the fire department was also located in the “old” police station on Maple Avenue. Of course, the new fire station is right next to the old one. I did not mean to slight the Fire Department, but if they want me to run any “now and then” photos I will be glad to do so. If any of you have “now and then” photos of Cheshire, just drop a comment and I will be glad to run them. P.S. When I say “now and then” I don’t mean photos of how you looked when you were a kid, and how awful you look now as an adult!!!

If you were paying attention, you also would notice the music has changed. The original music to the “Then and Now” project was a jazz rendition of “Paper Moon” Unfortunately, the music file got corrupted, so I had to go back onto free music downloads, which are copyright legal, I DON’T VIOLATE COPYRIGHTS, and I found a jazz instrumental. I can’t remember the name of the song or the artist, but believe it or not, the CD this song came from is entitled “CHESHIRE MOON” Can you believe it!! So this fit in fine!! Cheshire Now and Then, and the background music is Cheshire Moon. Great!!

I was talking to an old friend over the weekend, and we were chatting about the silent movies I have and we started talking about when we were kids and took tap dancing at Muriel Howe’s Dance Studio on Fairfield Avenue in Bridgeport. I tapped for many years. I even tapped at the Klein Memorial Auditorium in Bridgeport.

In fact, a few of the kids I tap danced with went on to perform in a few Buster Brown Shoe Commercials believe it or not.  So, we started talking about Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.

I love those movies. I mean they are CORNY, but the dancing–unbelievable. Even today, NO ONE can come close to them. And if you think those moves are easy–try them!!

My favorite dance scene is from “Top Hat” Entitled “Cheek to Cheek.” It is featured under “Featured Video” This dance scene sends shivers down my spine. It is sensual and classy.

Women and men had class back then. Especially women. They stood their ground. They acted like women. Men acted like men and went out and supported the family on ONE INCOME. Not like today. Women acting like men with tattoos and whatever.

My mother, for what she was worth, always used to say: “Why would a woman want to lower herself and act like a man or work in a man’s field”

These films came out in the 1930′s when our country was in the middle of the “Great Depression” For five cents you could see several films and spend most of the day in the theater. Speaking of depression– we came close last Wednesday people, to a complete monetary shutdown. If the Government had not stepped in, on Thursday, everything would have been closed. Monetary transactions would have been impossible.!!

See you in a few days.