“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.
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4 comments:
Fire hydrants? What a rip off, all that money wasted on red paint. Let's bring back the bucket brigade! (of course, we'll make them pay for thier own buckets...)
The funny thing about it all is that the whole Water/Sewer thing has been budgeted wrong from the beginning. If it wasn't for Lewis Clark pointing it out, the Sewer budget would keep being illegally kept in the town budget, instead of where it belongs, totally separated. Pat calls this the "Biggest Lie" in the whole budget, when, in fact, Mr. Law and Order himself should have been the first to point that out. Selective viewing of the budget and the State's laws can have that effect on a person. By separating the Sewer budget to where it rightfully belongs keeps all the money controlled by those who should control it, the sewer users. Those are the people who pay the money in those line items, not the entire taxpaying public. And since we have a Water Commission, it only makes sense for them to control the fire hydrants that hang off the very water mains they are responsible for. Oh, I forgot, logic doesn't apply here in Middlebury, or at least in certain sections of White Avenue...........
Pat needs to dance a lot faster now, and that is hard for an elderly disabled person, isn't it.
The current budget that Pat criticizes is a drastic improvement in transparency from Doctor St. John's budgets of the past years. But since Pat and Ed are in bed together Pat needs to take your attention off the obvious - so he dances and dances to distract you.
Has Pat forgotten about the cell tower money and the other tricks that the evil doctor used to buy himself shiny toys in past years? Who paid for the fancy pin striping on those green trucks? Here's your answer - the taxpayer paid for that fancy pinstriping and the special chrome adornments. Take a walk down to Public Works and check out Doctor St. John's personal trucking museum. Imagine. If St. John had another two years he probably would have built a museum. With your money!
Tom Gormley is auctioning off all those toys. Tom won't hide the money. He'll make sure it is clearly listed as a revenue. I hope Tom puts out a press release every time one of Doctor St. John's toys sells on eBay.
Ka-ching! Money back in YOUR pocket.
Don't look in the Waterbury Republican American for any investigative reporting on this topic.
No way!
It will never happen!
If there was real investigative reporting in Waterbury then we'd have a real honest-to-Jimmy-Olsen reporter combing through the books, exposing all of this.
But not in here. Unh unh!
You've read the papers. Pat Deangelis farts and it makes headlines in the local section of the Republican American. You'd think he was a local hero for crying out loud.
But when a true White Knight rides into town --- do we hear about it? No way! Zero coverage. Complete silence. Tom Gormley is a complete non-entity if you get your news from Waterbury.
The fourth referendum had a sub-headline ramming down the fact that the new REDUCED budget was an INCREASE in your mil rate.
Well duh!
But was there an explanation - like Marj Needham provided in the Be?
Oh no. That would have been helpful. Instead the Republican American lobbed in yet another incendiary bomb with the sole purpose to drive up the NO votes and keep the referendums coming.
Thanks guys! Hope your journalism professors never see how quickly you've given in to ass-kissing on Meadow Street!
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