UPDATE: Wednesday morning
Nostradamus strikes again. Yesterday I predicted the Region would cave in to the bully Select Board and ask for $1.1 million (+ or minus $100-K) piece of the Override pie and apparently last night they requested $950,000--nice price point.
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ORIGINAL POST: Tuesday morning
So at last night's Select Board Override extravaganja festival Stan Gawle, 'Amherst Taxpayers for Responsible Change' spokesperson, mentioned the $140,000 sitting in a Capital Accounts slush fund for over a half-dozen years that Town Meeting appropriated for renovations to the "comfort station" at Community Field, recently renamed Ziomek Field.
And of course this particular comfort station is also Stan Ziomek's summer office for all things baseball.
But my sources tell me the reason the money was never spent to actually do the renovations is because LSSE (and Stan Ziomek is on the LSSE recreation Commission) wants to build a gold-plated $10 million Recreation/Teen/Senior Center on or around this site and it would look fiscally irresponsible to renovate the bathrooms and a few years later have to tear it down to make way for the Taj Mahal.
Since the town closed the War Memorial Pool next door after more than fifty years of continuous summer operation, and since the Town Manager is talking about replacing it with a water sprinkler park, why not roll that $140-K into that less grandiose idea?
we all need to poop through a ring of gold, that's why
ReplyDeleteYeah for sure, as long as it's OPM (Other Peoples' Money) funding it.
ReplyDeleteNow, now, here you go distorting things. The facility would not be gold plated potties now would it? It would be a large recreation center for teens.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the corroboration...errrr, I think.
ReplyDeleteBecause in journalism you can't very well use Anons for corroboration.
fck amhurts.
ReplyDeleteJust one more reason I will not vote for the override. I'm sure LSSE will be appropriated money to create more overpriced entertainment. I'm sure they don't want to menu the override for examples just like this.
ReplyDeleteDK
Yeah, and don't let all the recent talk about LSSE weaning themselves from tax support fool ya.
ReplyDeleteThey only like to mention 'Operation Budget' but those figures do not include 'Capital' items (fancy vans for instance) or 'Employee Benefits.'
They just tacked on an additional $5 "field fee" for Amherst travel soccer players. Will they charge that to rec. league, baseball, and every other sport? I think it was odd to have it be an add on instead of just raising the fees, again.
ReplyDeleteBecause in journalism you can't very well use Anons for corroboration.
ReplyDeleteBut it's ok to use "your sources", who obviously don't know the difference between a men's room at Community Field, and the shed at Mill River, which is the real "summer office for all things baseball".
Come on now it's no longer "Community Field", it's "Ziomek Field."
ReplyDeleteAnd I seem to remember 45 years ago reporting to that particular men's room to pick up my Little League Baseball uniform from Stan (and I think my mother had to put down a deposit in case I did not return it)
Stan also stashed baseball equipment at the DPW as well, so I guess there were more than a few offices for all things baseball.
Larry will vote for the youth center if they teach immersion Chinese and the money to fund it is taken from the public school budget-not unlike a charter school built around the proposiion of teaching a world language. While the charter school is not exactly universally pursued by parents and students alike (IE it for a special interest) everyone who owns propoerty in Amherst funds it vide their real estate taxes just as they fund the public school only the charter school has no accountability to the School Board and therefore taxpeyers have no structural influence over policies plus it has its own overheard in brick and mortar and administrative personnel.
ReplyDeleteWhat that you feel? Why its Larrey Kelly with his hand in your pockets.
Funny when Larry talks about "other people money" he is blind to his own use of other people money.
Actually the Pioneer Valley Chinese Immersion School received a Million+ grant from the Feds and they have purchased and are expanding their building in Hadley (the old Kidsports--a former competitor of mine.)
ReplyDeleteCharter Schools are public schools. The money that follows Kira to PVCICS is tax money I contribute to the town of Amherst, so it is not OPM.
And in fact Kira is only in her third year at PVCICS so the state is still reimbursing the Amherst School district for her loss.
And furthermore, if Amherst schools spent the same per pupil as Charter Schools did statewide it would save Amherst taxpayers over $10 million annually.
Just look at the corruption in Springfield as regards to charter schools to see how lax their oversight is. Charter schools are an open invitation for your tax dollars to go into the pockets of unscrupulous people using education as their latest scam. Just like Medicare fraud people use something good for their own evil intentions.
ReplyDeleteWhile it only takes one white crow to disprove the notion "all crows are black," one instance of a Charter School screw up (or Mayor in a Mayor system of government) does not indict the entire system.
ReplyDeleteSHOW YOUR WORK:
ReplyDeleteif Amherst schools spent the same per pupil as Charter Schools did statewide it would save Amherst taxpayers over $10 million annually.
Moreover, the issue is what Amherst pays for students who attend and whether the marginal cost of reimbursing a charter school because you choose it is greater than having your student attend the public school system. If it ism you are spending other people's money. That said, it is you that identify SOPM as an offense and its a stupid construct in a nation built on the principle of common cause and majority rule. IE look at money spent on public roads; do people without cars have a valid claim that people with care are spending other people's money? Yes.
I have no idea what you are babbling about.
ReplyDeleteAll I'm saying is that if Amherst Schools spent the same per pupil as did, oh say, Northampton or Longmeadow that would have saved Amherst taxpayers over $12,000,000 last year.
And if Amherst spent the same average as all the Charter Schools the savings were slightly less (since Hamp and Longmeadow spend slightly less than state average), maybe $10 or $11 million.
I have no idea what you are babbling about.
ReplyDeleteYes you do, and you continue to defend your original assertion becuase you know its flawed. How so? You can't accuse other people of spending other people's money when you do it yourself.