Sunday, December 16, 2007

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas


So believe it or not the Crusty Gazette actually published a Letter on Saturday supporting the Town Mangler’s Scrooge Tax on the Boy Scouts Christmas tree sales: Alex Kent, a member of the Kanegasaki Sister City Committee closed with:

“All who use town property for their activities, whether they are for profit or not, should compensate the town for their use of public land. Mr. Shaffer's $1 fee is well within the bounds of reason, a welcome if small contribution to hard-pressed town coffers, and in no way undermines the good intentions or positive contributions of the Boy Scouts.

Alex Kent
Amherst”

So Alex ol boy, perhaps we should start charging the PeaceNiks who inhabit the corner of town center every Sunday at noon (and if we back charge them for the past 35 years we could afford to hire an Assistant for Assistant Town Manager John Musante.

Ch 3 TV out of Hartford, Ct. covers the story (yeah, I emailed a packet of material to the Connecticut media mentioning Shaffer's Vernon Ct. background):

http://www.cbs3springfield.com/news/local/12520971.html

3 comments:

O'Reilly said...

I think Kendrick park might fall into the category of commons.

Charging people to use commons is counter to its purpose except in the instance the town decides to recuperate actual costs associated with said use, such as a security detail.

Common land (a common), is a piece of land owned by one entity (the town) but over which other people can exercise certain traditional rights, such as allowing their livestock to graze upon it.

The older texts use the word "common" to denote any such right, but more modern usage is to refer to particular rights of common, and to reserve the name "common" for the land over which the rights are exercised. By extension, the term "commons" has come to be applied to other resources which a community has rights or access to.

Steven P. Barrett said...

Charge them five bucks per foot. And by the way, let's see if an assessment can be made for any increase in global warming all their selective hot air and yaking against the very nation that makes it possible for them to protest so freely. Then see if the town will use the money to buy more kevlar vests, etc. to send to our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The only way the BSA can get off as free as the protesters would be for them to set up a protest site on the Kendrick park protesting against the Kulturkampfs of the Progressives. It's just too bad the people who need to see what the Scouts had to protest about would be too busy at the other end of the street demonstrating their usual ingratitude.

Steven Brewer said...

Why not charge them the same $1 per Christmas tree sold? :-)