“Gov. Rell has asked the legislature to cap TOWN TAX INCREASE.
TO 3 PERCENT. Rell is adamantly opposed to 6 percent increases as she sees in palaces like Middlebury.
Vote NO today. Save yourself.”
Palaces??? I guess Governor Rell would be thrilled that the Town of Middlebury lowered their taxes by 3.16%. That is over 6% less than the Governor’s cap. Yet again, Mr. DeAngelis ignores this little fact, while acting as if Region 15 does not exist.
It’s fine to get a bargain and save money whenever you can, but there’s a lot of truth in two sayings: “Nothing in life is free,” and “You get what you pay for.” While most of us don’t have the money to buy top-of-the-line items, many of us try to buy the best quality we can afford because a better quality item lasts longer. Quality matters.
And quality matters in more than just the items we buy. Quality of life matters. Right now, our quality of life in Middlebury is seriously threatened by voters’ refusal to pass a Town budget. In June, 14 percent of the Town’s registered voters defeated the budget. Only 20 percent of the Town’s voters came to the polls.
As a Middlebury taxpayer, what do you value about the quality of life in Middlebury? What makes you feel your tax dollars are well spent? Is it the Greenway? Is it the Library and the many programs it offers to both adults and children? Is it the friendly and helpful staff at Town Hall and the Transfer Station? Is it the quickness with which a police officer or a firefighter shows up at your home when you call and need help? Is it the Middlebury Recreation Area or the Town parks? Is it the programs offered at the Senior Center? Is it something not mentioned here?
We value all of these things, and we are sadly watching them disappear, one by one, as voters defeat yet another budget. Over the past four years, we have watched as the Library closed its doors Wednesday nights and Saturdays. We’ve had to adjust when the Transfer Station went from being open six days a week to being open five days a week and then four days a week.
Over the past four years, we have had to call the Fire Department on two occasions, and both times they have arrived in short order, quickly assessed the situation and resolved the problem. We’ve also had to call the Police Department, and they, too, have arrived in record time. We don’t want to give up these great services.
We feel these fine services make our quality of life better. They also increase property values because a town that offers good services to its residents is considered a desirable place to live.
We believe honest men and women of integrity serve our Town and have worked hard to present us with a bare bones budget. They had no choice but to work with the Region 15 budget and the effects of past financial decisions, and we are convinced they have done the best they could under the circumstances. We will vote “Yes” on Tuesday, and we hope you will, too. Let’s preserve the quality of life we value in Middlebury!
-------------------
I've heard two pretty alarming comments made recently by some Middlebury residents that I would like to share with the voters.
1. "Some voters are bent on doing whatever they can to see Tom Gormley fail, and that includes either not voting or voting "no" on the budget."
2. "Some voters will not support a town budget proposal until the disparity between Middlebury and Southbury over the Regional School District 15 is corrected" (even though there is no relationship between the Region 15 finance system and Middlebury's town budget).
I hope there is little truth to these statements. Party politics (or to phrase it better, petty pickiness) has shrouded just about everything the town has done, or tried to do, for the past few years without reference to, or consideration of, the common good. The present economic condition of our town, state and country is quite dire, and acting like children isn't helping. Just how long must this go on?
Tom Gormley is an honest, dedicated first selectman and public servant who does his level best to deal with the many problems that confront the town at this time. His administration literally walked into a beehive of political and financial issues, none of which are Tom's doing. Yet, there are those who are doing their best to try and trip him up, embarrass him or just get under his skin.
I say enough is enough!
One way we can confront this situation is for all eligible voters to get to the referendum Tuesday, Sept. 30, and pass this budget! The Middlebury Board of Finance has worked diligently on our behalf, as has the administration, to be fiscally responsible with the budget. We're at a point now that if we cut further into this budget, we do it at our peril next year and thereafter.
I believe this budget is devoid of any fat and developed with all our concerns and responsibilities taken into consideration. With the power of the ballot we can take charge of our town again. Please vote YES to adopt this budget. We can't afford not to.
----------------
Message From
"Regardless of whether a bailout takes place or not, the taxpayer will bear the brunt of the costs and the "boy's club" in Middlebury want to raise your taxes by 10 percent.."..OURMONEYPIT.
This is just an outright lie. It is well documented everywhere that Tom Gormley has cut the taxes on the Town side by 3.16%. Because of the huge increase in the Region 15 budget the total increase is 5.98%.
These figures are not in dispute, yet Mr. DeAngelis continues to tell his readers some fictitious “boys club” wants to raise taxes by 10%. Mr. DeAngelis’s information is not accurate.
“Never before in the history of the town have we had FOUR budget referendums in a non-election year. Never before have we had such a lack of leadership and such a shoddy financial design for the town.”
Mr. DeAngelis forgets that budget referendums are relatively new in Middlebury, with the first one occurring in 2005. Before that under the St. John administration, budgets were quietly passed in the dead of night, by a small group of people.
Mr. DeAngelis is also forgetting that the basic structure of the Town budget is the same as the structure Mr. St. John has been using for years, with the one exception. Mr. Gormley has cut the Town budget. So if he is characterizing the budget as shoddy financial design, is he not also criticizing Mr. St. John’s budget structure?
“Nothing has really changed from the last budget. That garbage about the "slush" funds being eliminated is just that, garbage. Gormley is a tout for special interests, he is anything but a representative of the people.”
Nothing really changed except Tom Gormley and the BOF cut the budget even more from 2.38% to 3.16%.
“No matter what happens this time around, most people in town agree,
the central issue is clear--Gormley must go. We need someone that can
bring the town together and move forward.”
Most people in Town do not think as Mr. DeAngelis does. Mr. DeAngelis does not speak for anyone in this Town, besides himself, and apparently Mr. St John.
Tom Gormley has shown incredible leadership along with Bob Demarais in the face of the many challenges that his administration has inherited from the previous one. He has worked extremely hard to bring the Town together and has been an incredible success in changing the tone of Middlebury government. Tom has an open door policy and is extremely accessible to the public. Even yesterday, he was very accessible at the Apple Festival.
Blaming the budget on Tom Gormley illustrates the ignorance of the accusers. The Town faced a bloated Region 15 budget in a severe economic climate. As reported in the Middlebury Bee-Intelligencer, Middlebury has lost -
1) $371,377 in lost fees form Building Department/Land Use, Public Works, Tax Collection, and Recording Fees.
2) $135,000 in lost interest income.
3) $948,125 in potential loss Middlebury Land Associates. (Mr. St. John’s Washington Drive deal.)
In addition the $650,000 Rainy Day fund was raided last year by the St. John administration at the insistence of Kelli Bollard and left nothing for the Gormley administration to fall back on to lessen the blow to our taxpayers this year.
In the face of such adverse conditions, Mr. Gormley managed to reduce taxes on the Town side by 3.16%. Conversely, the Region added $912,229.00 to their budget. Mr. DeAngelis ignores the Region 15 increase and Tom Gormley’s decrease on the Town side.
The new look from the Hill is one of honesty and integrity. Tom Gormley is a man of character, a good and decent man who is working to rectify the mistakes of the past. That takes time, and Tom Gormley deserves the support of this community. Tom Gormley is not going anywhere.
All opinions on this site are those of the person making them. Freedom of speech is not restricted to just the few. It is available to all. Feel free to post.
- MiddleburyStayInformed.
“Who is paying for all those signs?
the Republican Town Committee isn't paying for them..
Who is paying the thousands of dollars for all the budget signs? The
Republican Town Committee didn't pay for them. Is town money being
used? The Election Enforcement Commission would like to know
where the line of attribution is on these signs.”
I think the real question to ask is who is stealing all these signs? The white and red “Vote Yes To The Budget” signs started popping up around Town late last week on the lawns of many of Middlebury’s homes. These are political speech signs, displayed on private property and are protected by the Constitution of the United States. They are a symbol of the homeowner’s right to freedom of speech.
Last night these lawn signs started disappearing off Middlebury residents’ private property. I believe that is called stealing and it is a crime. It also infringes on the resident’s freedom of speech rights, is trespassing and trounces on the civil rights of the property owner.
Mr. DeAngelis seems to be tilting at windmills when he suggests that Town money was used to pay for such signs, and also suggesting that the Town is being used.
On Saturday night when it became apparent that these little lawn signs were in fact quickly disappearing from the private property of our residents, our wonderful Police Department went into action. Looks like they have found the culprits.
Mr. DeAngelis is also quick to mention that the RTC did not pay for the signs. The RTC is made up mostly of the Row B group who campaigned last winter that they were the group who actually supported Tom Gormley. Where is that support today? The DTC supported the last budget. The Board of Selectman supports the budget, and so do the Board of Finance. So where does the RTC weigh in?
By the way, if these VOTE YES signs are worth thousands of dollars as Mr. DeAngelis has suggested, wouldn't their theft constitute a felony crime?
Mr. DeAngelis/Supporters,
If nobody wants to live here, how were they able (in a decade) to build and fill Steeple Chase, Brookside, Pine Crest, and now yet another massive development off of Christian Rd? The mere fact that the school populations is skyrocketing is testament to the fact that Middlebury is a VERY desirable place to live, regardless of the taxes.
People move to towns like Middlebury for the quality of life that they offer. If someone wanted cheap schools, shoddy living conditions, and lower levels of public safety, they would live somewhere like New Haven or Waterbury. People move to Middlebury for its good schools, highly visible police presence, and dedicated volunteer fire and ambulance services. They're willing to pay a little extra to be able to live in a place where the police officer on the corner knows them by name and they see the fire chief out washing cars for some community fundraiser in front of fire HQ. To them, it's worth the extra money.
One thing that has always bothered me about Pat and OurMoneyPit is not as much the lies and slander, but his constant use of the word "we". Pat, no team of writers work to write on your site. It represents your viewpoints and perspectives, and I respect that because I believe in free speech. But when you use the third person to refer to yourself and use "we" in your attacks on my beloved town, you cross the line.
How can you be so pro-democracy about freedom of information and open government when you believe that you have the ability to form the people's opinions for them? How do you know what "we" think about Chief Perrotti or Mr. Gormley? More importantly, who are you to tell me what I should think? If you're going to give your opinion online, do just that... express YOUR opinion. Call yourself "I", not the third person. Stop pretending that there is some secret large elaborate left-wing think-tank writing your page.
I've also noticed a recent trend in you and your supporters to leave comments on this blog. I think that's great! Open dialogue is what makes democracy so great and this country such a great place to live in! However, why is it that you cannot give others the ability to leave comments on your website? You complain about how people key cars and break bottles... maybe it is because they are so frustrated and that is the only way that they have to get your attention. There is no message board, no comments section, and no email address on your website. Perhaps if you enabled these features, people would be able to make their point with words rather than actions and a lot of the animosity would be alleviated.
Some people might view what you are doing as a noble thing... standing up for the little guy and the taxpayers against the government regime. However, how can you stand for someone if they do not have a say? When you take away this element, your position switches from that of a political reformist to that of a political terrorist. By this, and spreading messages that you know to be lies or that you know have no basis in true fact, you are no longer seeking to inspire change, but only to inspire chaos and unrest.
In tough times like we are experiencing today - with the homeland security threats, failing economy, etc. etc. - more than ever we need a strong leader, and I hope that you can agree with me on this point. You yourself have spoken volumes about how hard these times are on us all, at least financially. Why is it then, that rather than trying to help strengthen our town by adding to the leadership - whether it by joining government/committees and getting involved or simply going to meetings and sharing your ideas in a constructive manner - that you choose to hide behind your computer screen and just sabotage the current leadership that is trying so hard to bring us through these tough times. I applaud Mr. Gormley, not necessarily for the decisions that he has made, but more so for the leadership qualities he has exhibited by not giving up in the face of a seemningly endless political onslaught.
Mr. Gormley and Chief Perrotti are not hiding behind their computer screens - they are out in the field every day, doing what they normally do, and trying their hardest to make this town a better place to live for all of us who moved her for a better community.
Mr. DeAngelis, for once, this letter is not intended as an attack. It is an honest attempt to communicate with a man that I have never met in person, and whom I have no other way of contacting. My request to you is simple - please change the tone of your website. I think your proposing of ideas is a great benefit to our community. However, I wish that you would focus more on the betterment of our community than on trying to insinuate chaos. Open up your website to dialogue and debate. Switch to a format such as this website's. It's much neater and it gives everyone a chance to have their voice heard... which is what such a proponent of democracy such as yourself should ultimately be after.
Mr. DeAngelis, please respond to me and let me know what you think. I look forward to reading your comments and input and only ask that if you do post a response - do it on your website as a message or letter to me so that I know that it is not someone else trying to cause trouble. Thank you for taking the time to read this.
~C
========================
All opinions on this site are those of the person making them. Freedom of speech is not restricted to just the few. It is available to all. Feel free to post.
- MiddleburyStayInformed.
Next Budget Referendum Only Hits "Town Side".
I have spoken to many residents over the past couple of months, and although we have attempted to inform the general public about the real issues they are voting on over the past few weeks, I still hear things from many who feel that they will continue to vote down the school budget. To set the record straight, I offer the following:
1. You’re not voting for the Region 15 school budget.That vote passed some time ago and cannot be changed. The bottom line is that we are committed to our portion of the school cost – at least for this year.
2. The town side has already been reduced approximately 3.16% from last years budget; which was approved by you the taxpayers.
3. Our new bond upgrade (which the Town recently received) could be in jeopardy, which could affect us all in our ability to borrow funds.
4. Middlebury property values could begin to be affected as Town services continue to decline our ability to attract new residents. This could cause a negative light in relationship to our neighboring towns.
5. Middlebury continues to lose money every day due to lost interest on taxes which we cannot bill for at this time; to say nothing of the cost to the Town to run each referendum.
Please get out and vote.
Very truly yours,
Tom Gormley First Selectman
This is a "minor" point we've been told. Of course all these "minor"
points add up to major expenses. What the hell is such a broad category
as "Fire Fighting Equipment" doing in an adult budget. What equipment and
what is the definition of fire fighting equipment. And who gets the grand for
sweeping the firehouse floor?
An “adult budget?” Verses what, a child budget? I think you need to be an adult to fight a fire, and I do think that firefighters need equipment to do so. Considering the cost of fire fighting equipment and the fact that it does need to be replaced, $20,000 is a small number. Perhaps we should be outfitting the apparatus with discarded garden hose found at the dump. It is not minor. Its silly.
Anyone who has ever visited Fire Headquarters will agree that the building is the cleanest public building in Town. Visitors often think that the building is brand new. Why does it look so good? Because the firefighters take pride in their building and keep it in pristine condition. The credit goes almost 100% to Chief Perrotti.
But, heck its all about the numbers, right? Lets look at the Budget.
Recreation Contractual Cleaning $2,000.00
Janitorial $1800.00
Total: $3800.00
Library Contractual Cleaning $5,000.00
Total: $5000.00
Public Works Contractual Cleaning $12,450.00
Total: $12,450.00
Police Department Janitorial $1100.00
Cleaning Services $ 700.00
Total: $1800.00
Fire Department Janitorial $1000.00
Total: $1000.00
One of the largest departments in Town with one of the smallest budgets also has the smallest budget towards cleaning. How is it that the organization with the smallest cleaning budget also has the cleanest building in Town? Just more silly, unfounded attacks against the MVFD from Mr. DeAngelis.
“Page 38 is home of the Great Hydrant Scam. In this scam the
Fire Department "reduces" its budget by $ 72, 780.00 by GIVING the
hydrants to the Water Dept. Hmmmmmmmmmmm what town do you
suppose pays for the hydrants. Hmmmmmmmmmmm, we would guess
that it is hidden somewhere in this budget because we pay for it. Unless,
of course, the hydrants are to be used as drinking fountains and are not
Fire Dept. pieces.”
Mr. DeAngelis thinks that this is a scam. Its not. Mr. St. John, many years ago, put hydrants in the MVFD budget to make the Public Works budget look smaller. That should not have happened.
Hydrants are more of a function of public works than fire fighting. The Fire Department does not decide where hydrants are placed, they don’t maintain the hydrants, and they don’t test them. In fact they have absolutely no control over these hydrants, so why were they ever in the budget?
In going along with this thinking, NFPA 1001 2008 has taken hydrant testing out of its Standard - citing that hydrants were considered a function of water utility. So Middlebury is hardly unique, and that is backed up by the National Fire Protection Association.
No scam here, they were just switched from one line to another. So the Department did NOT REALLY cut their budget?
Actually they did and MiddleburyStayInformed Blog would like to apologize about posting incorrect information. Previously, we have stated that the MVFD budget was $214,000. That is incorrect. The correct number is $209,448. That is an almost 9% decrease than last year. We do apologize for this error.
We also discovered we made an additional error. We have stated that the MVFD has cut it’s budget by almost 10% over the last two years. That figure is also not correct. The correct statement should be that the MVFD has cut its budget by almost 14% over the last two years.
All reductions do not include hydrants.
“We are paying $ 315,000 grand or so for a "communications"
system in Middlebury and we are paying for a "communications"
system in Prospect and we "need" to pay for a two million dollar new
"communications" system and the fire dept has a grant of $ 300,000
grand for a "communications" system. Who are we "communicating" with, Mars ?”
I don’t know why the communications system is such a difficult concept for Mr. DeAngelis to understand. Lets give it another shot.
Why did Fire and EMS leave Middlebury in the first place? A couple of years ago the State of Connecticut mandated that all towns must have EMD services. EMD stands for Emergency Medical Dispatch. All the folks up at Communications had to take a State certified EMD course. So everyone up at HQ is trained, so what is the problem? Why can’t they do it?
Well, they can, but there is one small hitch. When a caller dials 911 and gets one of our dispatchers, by State law, the dispatcher must remain on the line delivering lifesaving instructions and gathering a whole bunch of information. Since there is only one dispatcher working at a time, the dispatcher cannot answer routine calls, other emergency calls, communicate with police officers, the MVFD, or the Public Works. In addition, they can not even dispatch the call. The result is a delayed response.
So what were the options.
1) Farm Fire and EMS communications out to Northwest C-Med. Hey wait a minute! Why do you have to farm Fire out? Why can’t that stay? Well it could, but -
A) It would create confusion. FD11 and the apparatus roll together at motor vehicles accidents, structure fires and rescues. It would make little sense for the FD to be talking to one dispatcher, and the ambulance talking to another. The crosstalk would seriously jeopardize patient care and safety.
B) Since the majority of calls received by the MVFD are of a medical nature, the cost savings was not significant when compared to the disadvantages to separate the two responses with two dispatchers.
2) You could keep dispatch 100% in-house, but the Town would need to hire another dispatcher to work at the same time. That would be the ultimate, but it would be expensive.
According to this year’s budget figures -
Salaries $175,000.
Holiday, Vacation, And Sick $53,552.
Total - $228,552.39
Now we are going to have to increase this by two, so the new cost would be about -
$457,104.00. Wow thats a lot of money.
So which is better? Do we pay an extra $228,552. each year so that the Town can comply with the State’s mandated EMD program, or do we pay Northwest C-MED $42,000.00 to do the job for us?
You make the call.
I don’t know all that much about police communications, except that I do know the present system is not adequate, and is a direct threat to police officer safety. If a police officer is not safe, then you are not safe.
There are several dead spots in town where the police radios are absolutely worthless. I have witnessed police officers standing 150 feet away from each other not able to communicate through their portables. When the only way they can communicate is through their Nextel phones, we have a problem. Its time to upgrade the radios to the 21st century and high-band.
You can talk about the high-bands as being state-of-the-art. They are the radio system of choice. You can talk about all the area towns that are going to or have gone to high-band. The MVFD has high-band so the officers could communicate with them. There are a great many reasons to switch.
But, it all comes down to the number one most important reason, and that is the safety of our police officers. Police officer safety equals community safety.
No one that I know here wants to communicate to anyone on Mars, they just want our police officers safe. The radio system must be upgraded. Until a solution is found for EMD, than Fire and EMS communications must stay at Northwest. $42,000 is a lot more attractive than an additional $228,552.
“Middlebury First Selectman Tom Gormley is responding to the national economic crisis by proposing to raise local taxes 10 percent. Don’t be fooled by the rhetoric coming from Town Hall.
This proposed budget could be reduced easily by removing the unmonitored spare fuel tank and the duplicate communications services; stopping payment of insurance premiums for private companies; stopping lavish spending for a fire department that has more than $800,000 in reported assets; and stopping payment of duplicate legal fees to a town attorney who hires other attorneys to perform his work.
If I have any money left over from my pension check, I would rather spend it on my grandchildren than on chrome wheels for the fire chief’s car.”
Mr. DeAngelis’s letter to the Editor (Republican/American September 25, 2008) is once again not accurate, full of distortions, and is an attempt to promote distorted views of what is really happening in Middlebury. Mr. DeAngelis keeps repeating the same inaccurate statements hoping that people will believe them. The motive is to make the current administration look bad and somehow in an awkward and convoluted way bolster the legacy of Mr. St. John.
Once again we list what is really true and what is not.
1) Tom Gormley has not raised your taxes one dollar. He has reduced the Town budget by 3.16%. This reduction on the Town side will help offset the whopping increase on the Region 15 side, that has already been passed earlier this year. That is Region 15’s budget, not Tom Gormley’s budget.
Tom Gormley nor anyone in Town can do anything about the current increase in the Region 15 budget. Saying otherwise is simply not being accurate. It was voted on months ago, and although Middlebury residents voted it down, Southbury passed it. Game over.
Mr. DeAngelis would have you believe that the Town should keep hacking away at the Town side of the budget, and allow the Region 15 budget to run wild. That move would weaken services, and result in layoffs of Town employees. Weakening services will result in decreased property values, lower bond ratings, and an unsatisfactory ISO rating.
2) Remove the “unmonitored spare fuel tank.” Another distortion. The new tank will replace the present tank. For years under the St. John administration, Fire HQ was being heated with expensive high-quality diesel oil fuel meant for fire apparatus. This was a waste of taxpayer money. To save money the Gormley administration will be installing a new apparatus fuel tank at Fire HQ, so that the building will now be heated with less expensive home heating oil from the existing tank. The savings for this is extensive, so much that the tank will pay for itself in less than 3 years.
The notion that the present fuel pump at Fire HQ is not monitored is a lie. The pump is locked at all times, a log of fuel taken from the tank is recorded in each apparatus and the pump itself is under 24 hour camera surveillance.
3) Mr. DeAngelis seems to have no understanding of how the 911 system in Middlebury works. He keeps referring to “duplicate communication services.” He obviously has no concept that the Town can not eliminate Northwest C-Med without first bringing proper EMD services to Town. The present system allows for better patient care, and increases the rate that calls are dispatched. The cells of the brain of a patient who is not breathing will begin to die in 4 to 6 minutes. Quicker dispatch equates to more lives saved. How much is that worth?
Having all communications at Middlebury HQ would be the ultimate solution, but in order to do it properly more taxpayer money will have to be sunk into the communications budget. How much would taxes increase by adding a second dispatcher to each shift? We can safely say it would be a lot more expensive than using Northwest.
4) The vague reference to insurance premiums is another red herring, and relates to the amount the Town pays to insure the two ambulances and 12 ambulance auxiliary members. The two vehicles come under the Town’s fleet insurance now, so adding or subtracting a vehicle from this policy would do little to change the premium. Mr. DeAngelis and Mr. McCormack like to float Mr. St. John’s $40,000 figure which has absolutely no basis in fact. It is a made-up number. The Ambulance Billing system saves taxpayers thousands of dollars each year.
5) The $800,000 that the MVFD supposably stores in its treasury could be used to buy fire apparatus is not correct, has never been correct, and never will be correct. The MVFD responded to this claim way back on February 1st, 2008 -
http://www.middleburyfire.org/letter2_1_08.pdf,
and yet Mr. DeAngelis just keeps singing the same chorus like a bad song you just can’t get out of your head.
6) The chrome wheels replaced rusted and unsafe steel wheels, were ordered under last year’s budget and in-service under last year’s budget. The bill may have come after the new fiscal year started, but the funds were coming from the budget year before. This dispels the notion that the MVFD was purchasing “luxury items” after this fiscal year began and in a time when the Town can’t pass a budget. The argument has no basis in fact.
These “luxury wheels” were $125.00 each and included the labor to remove the old wheels and replace the new wheels. The wheels themselves were used and the MVFD was given a price that was lower than replacing the unsafe wheels with new steel wheels. That was a savings, not an outlandish purchase. Once again, a manufactured controversy.
“No money for 8th grade graduation, or trip to Washington D.C. for students, but adults have the money for parades?
Sorry, Virgina, no 8th grade graduation for you...there's no money.
Sorry Robbie, going to see where the President of the United States
lives is not important and there is no money... There IS MONEY
HOWEVER TO TAKE men, equipment and uniforms up to Hartford and
MARCH, HUT,HUT, HUT...IN A PARADE.
The children...will somebody think of the chldren...screw the parade
for grownups, get the kids to Washington D.C. and for God's sake let
them have a graduation ceremony from 8th grade in the public schools.
The Catholic kids get to graduate in their schools...“
This is a new one. Now the MVFD is responsible for the shortcomings of Region 15. It seems to me the Region gets millions of dollars each year from taxpayers, and appears to be on the prowl to get even more. Instead of examining whether or not this money is being spent correctly, the solution is to throw even more money at it - yes for the sake of the children. Nonsense.
The MVFD receives $214,000.00. The Department is one of the biggest and best run organizations in Town operating on one of the smallest budgets. The MVFD cut its budget by 10% over the last 2 years. How much has Region 15 increased their budget?
As far as the Washington trip? Both our children attended the Washington trip, and as I remember, both our children earned big money by selling candy bars. The rest of the cost of the trip was paid by my wife and myself. We are not rich. It was not easy, but we did it, as many other parents do it every year. As I also remember, part of the money we had to pay helped cover the teachers, and kids whose parents could not afford to send them. We had no problem with that.
If they want to go to Washington, get out there and sell some candy bars. Have a bunch of car washes at the Firehouse. Sponsor a pasta dinner. Be creative, and stop looking to government to solve all your problems.
“It's beginning to look like a ghetto again... Tom G. and John Dayton are funny. They talk about Middlebury being "like" Weston, New Canaan and Wilton, about our "quality of life."
Do you think any of those towns would allow those ugly sheets of plywood signs at the entrance to their towns? No, the wouldn't. Those signs make us look like the Beverly Hillbillies.”
Now the Money Pit is attacking not only the MVFD Ladies Auxiliary, but moving on to attacking the Catholic Church as well. God himself will probably be next.
The two signs that Mr. DeAngelis is talking about are two fundraising signs at the 63/64 intersection.
The first is for the upcoming fundraising event for the MVFD Ladies Auxiliary. Nationally recognized paranormal expert Lorraine Warren will be speaking at the high school on October 4th at 7:00 PM. Tickets are available at Perrotti’s Restaurant and the Town Hall Tax Office. You can also get tickets by calling Beverly at 203-577-2108.
The Ladies work very hard throughout the year to raise money that goes directly back to helping this community. They give out scholarships and do a variety of community targeted projects.
The second sign is to promote St. John of the Cross Apple Harvest Festival 2008.
From their website:
This year marks our thirteenth annual Apple Harvest Festival. It will be held rain or shine on Sunday, September 28th from 9 am to 4 pm at Shepardson Community Center.
The festival is an event that focuses on family fun and is a wonderful community tradition. All are welcome and encouraged to participate.
The event committee is working hard to make sure that we have another great festival this year.
More information at
http://www.stjohnofthecrosschurch.org/stjohnofthecrossappleharvest.shtml
--------------------------------------------------
Mr. DeAngelis continues to attack everything that is good about this town, while promoting the agendas of those who seek to damage it. Two community organizations hosting fundraisers to benefit the community, and Mr. DeAngelis has something bad to say about it.
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