Lies, Damn Lies, and statistics

UPDATE: 2:45 PM (Just sent this email to a bevy of local media folks (reporters and editors) and copied to a few town officials:

So you should pull up last year's LSSE press release and the resulting ink in the Springfield Republican (I remember you emailing me almost instantly when Diane Lederman's story first appeared on their website a full 12 hours before it appeared in print). And of course you held off and came out with a(slightly) more accurate article a day later.

As you may remember, the Town Mangler claimed "no tax revenue" was involved in Cherry Hill that year (FY07)--that they were "in the black $7,200". And I even went to the following Select Board meeting to ask him during the 6:15 Question Period (bending the rules, because the 'Question Period" is usually directed at the Select board) if perhaps he was misquoted. And he denied it and repeated the lie.

The excel spreadsheet from the Comptroller proves him a liar. He must have gotten it from Anne Awad.

As Stan Gawle taught me: use their own documents against them!
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(Original Post early this morning)
Well, as I feared, the Springfield Republican headline writer was not paying attention. They should have said that golf revenues were up over last year. Of course if you go back six years to FY02, they generated $245,932; adjusting for inflation at 2.5% Cherry Hill would need to generate $282,821 significantly more than FY08’s $264,036 total that town officials now gloat about.

At least their favorite term used in the propaganda press release (that I still have not been given) “net profit” was nowhere to be found in the Republican article.

Although once again the Town Manager uses the $207,000 Operation Budget figure as though that is the total cost to taxpayers in golf overhead, ignoring the $30,000 in employee benefits and insurance costs and $15,000 in capital improvements.

The excel spreadsheet sent to Town Manager on Monday by the Comptroller clearly shows a deficit of $20,435.10 for FY07 rather than the “net profit” of $7,200 claimed by LSSE in a press release last year at this time (where they really faked out the Springfield Republican).

And last year the Town Manager crossed the line into flat out lying territory by claiming “no tax support” was involved in the golf course; even the Finance Committee said otherwise--and now this accounting spreadsheet corroborates it!

(Yeah, I just noticed they spelled my name wrong. Yikes!)



Note: Bottom Line (now you know why the private sector uses that term) shows "DEFICIT" of over $20,000 last year yet they sent out Press Releases claiming $7,200 in "net profit". Click to enlarge.