“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.
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15 comments:
"lost fees from the building dept." ......whose fault is that ??? why do we budget so much revenue when we know the economy stinks ? Belden makes unrealistic revenue expectations in the 1st place, then it becomes the taxpayers fault when they don't materialize. So the answer is to raise taxes ??? NO, cut spending if the funds are not coming in.
What really sickens me is the number of people who are sitting on their hands and not speaking out in support of Middlebury.
The recent budget squeeze was thrown in to Gormley's lap. Every person who closely followed the budget reduction knows absolutely that there is no short term fix for the next fiscal year. Even massive layoffs will not do much in the next year.
The only blame that I'd assign to Gormley is that he is too nice of a guy. He should have spoken out far more forcefully about the mess left by St. John and Bollard.
But none of that is a secret. Everybody in Middlebury knows that Doctor St. John created a bloated out of control dictatorial monstrosity. And they know that Bollard took away one of the tools that Gormley could have used this year.
Gormley's success is getting the books clarified. A lot of St. John's financial hanky panky has been exposed. Gormley also correctly audited the Washington Drive fiasco. Deangelis wants to bury that fiasco. Wonder why?
Given all the banana peels that have been thrown I'd call Gormley a hero for continuing to fight and NOT GIVING UP! Bravo.
And to his non-supporters: examine your consciences!
what the hell does Bollard have to do with it ?
she lost the election years ago
Bollard took a big bow last year when she raided the contingency fund to keep the mil rate down.
This year she landed on the Board of Finance and needs to deal with the economic downturn. She wishes there were cookies in the cookie jar, but there aren't any. She took them last year.
Bollard needs to dance around this issue just like Deangelis is dancing. Bollard created an artificially low budget last year by raiding the contingency. This year she'd like to make some cuts - but she can't do ANYTHING in the short term. Listen to the tapes. She is stuck. The best she could do was 5.999%.
So you're asking if Bollard created this mess? Bollard made the mess far worse than it needed to be. And now she's stuck with no more cookie jars.
What does Deangelis do?
He blames Perrotti!
Bollard is the one who forced the town to (with her brillant Idea) to use the surplus to offset the taxes so there would be no increase.
And Perotti (or others) would have used the surplus to buy a new fire truck. So we are in the same situation.
See what I mean?
Bollard caused the problem and Deangelis blames Perrotti!
It would be funny if it weren't so serious. Bollard is just as helpless as anybody else on the Board of Finance. If it was possible to cut deeper I'm sure she would have spoken up. But her "extensive financial background" seems to be limited to raiding the cookie jar.
Isn't there some way to blame Fran Brennan? He's always a good target. Maybe Waterbury Slime Politics is involved somewhere.
the root cause of the problem was Doctor Edward St. John. Did you notice that pat never brings up his name when he is hurling blame?
whyizzzit?
Hey Johnny Dayton's company went bankrupt today.
Nice.... and he's our finance board chair....
time for that bozo to leave. Volunteer his time doing something else
*Hey Johnny Dayton's company went bankrupt today.
Nice.... and he's our finance board chair....
time for that bozo to leave. Volunteer his time doing something else*
This person is an absolute moron. Its scary that we have such idiots walking the streets of Middlebury. Its amazing that with all the education opportunities we have in this country, somehow this person slipped through the cracks.
Read the following to find out how Johnny Dayton brought down the Wachovia Bank.
NEW YORK (AP) - Citigroup agreed Monday to purchase Wachovia's banking operations for $2.1 billion in a deal arranged by federal regulators, making the Charlotte-based bank the latest casualty of the widening global financial crisis.
The deal greatly expands Citigroup's retail franchise—giving it a total of more than 4,300 U.S. branches and $600 billion in deposits—and secures its place among the U.S. banking industry's Big Three, along with Bank of America Corp. and JPMorgan Chase & Co.
But it comes at a cost: Citigroup Inc. said it will slash its quarterly dividend in half to 16 cents. It also will dilute existing shareholders by selling $10 billion in common stock to shore up its capital position.
In addition to assuming $53 billion worth of debt, Citigroup will absorb up to $42 billion of losses from Wachovia's $312 billion loan portfolio, with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. agreeing to cover any remaining losses. Citigroup also will issue $12 billion in preferred stock and warrants to the FDIC.
The remainder of Wachovia will include its asset management, retail brokerage and certain select parts of its wealth management businesses, including the Evergreen and Wachovia Securities franchises. It will continue to be a public company under the Wachovia name.
The agreement comes after a fevered weekend courtship in which Citigroup and Wells Fargo & Co. both were reportedly studying the books of Wachovia Corp., which was weighed down by losses linked to its ill-timed 2006 acquisition of mortgage lender Golden West Financial Corp.
Wachovia, like Washington Mutual Inc., which was seized by the federal government last week, was a big originator of option adjustable-rate mortgages, which offered very low introductory payments and let borrowers defer some interest payments until later years. Delinquencies and defaults on these types of mortgages have skyrocketed in recent months, causing big losses for the banks.
Wachovia shares, which had slumped as the global credit crisis intensified in recent months, had not traded by early Monday afternoon, even though electronic premarket trades showed them plunging 91 percent to 94 cents.
The FDIC asserted Monday that Wachovia did not fail, and that all depositors are protected and there will be no immediate cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, in a statement Monday, said he supports the "timely actions" taken by the FDIC "which demonstrate our government's unwavering commitment to financial and economic stability."
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said in a statement that the sale of Wachovia's banking operations to Citigroup would "mitigate potential market disruptions." Paulson said he agreed with the FDIC and the Fed that a "failure of Wachovia would have posed a systemic risk" to the nation's financial system.
The deal is essentially a vote of confidence in Citigroup's capital strength, said Sandler O'Neill & Partners analyst Jeff Harte in a note to investors. "We are skeptical that the FDIC would have brokered a deal to sell Wachovia's assets and liabilities into weak hands," he said.
With the acquisition of the bulk of Wachovia, Citigroup has reclaimed its title as the biggest U.S. bank by total assets—$2.91 trillion. In terms of how shareholders value each company's stock, Bank of America Corp. remains the largest U.S. bank, followed by JPMorgan Chase in second and Citigroup in third place.
Wachovia's takeover marks a dramatic shift in the outlook for Citigroup's future. Just a short time ago, the bank's investors worried about the possibility of its own collapse given its massive exposure to mortgage-backed securities. New York-based Citigroup has not turned a profit for three straight quarters, and lost a total of $17.4 billion during that period after writing down its assets by about $46 billion. That's the largest reduction in asset values taken by any U.S. bank in the current credit crisis.
Citigroup said it expects to reduce expenses by more than $3 billion annually as it consolidates certain functions. But with few overlaps in their regional operations, Citi projects closing fewer than 5 percent of the banks' combined branches.
During a conference call with investors, Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit said he is working with Wachovia CEO Bob Steel in setting up a transition team. "We will make sure that we execute on this with a great deal of precision and a great deal of speed," he said.
The government's proposed $700 billion rescue plan for financial institution, being voted on Monday by the House of Representatives, likely will prove of added benefit to Citi.
While the plan broadly aims to prevent banks from profiting on the sale of troubled assets to the government, there is an exception made for assets acquired in a merger or buyout, or from companies that have filed for bankruptcy. This could allow Citigroup to sell toxic mortgages and other assets it gained from Wachovia for a higher price than the bank actually paid for them.
The Wachovia acquisition caps a wave of unprecedented upheaval in the financial sector in the past six months that has redefined the banking industry, starting with the government-led forced sale of Bear Stearns Cos. to JPMorgan in March.
The failure of IndyMac Bancorp in July reignited investors' fears about the stability of the financial sector, which led to the eventual takeover of struggling mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Earlier this month, officials seized both Fannie and Freddie, temporarily putting them in a government conservatorship, replacing their chief executives and taking a financial stake in the mortgage finance companies.
After U.S. regulators made it clear that they would not bail out struggling investment bank Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., rival Merrill Lynch & Co. arranged a hasty deal to be bought by Bank of America Corp. for $50 billion in stock.
Lehman Brothers was subsequently forced to declare bankruptcy, the largest ever in the United States. Investor concerns quickly turned to American International Group Inc., the nation's largest insurer. Staving off a failure that could have sent shock waves throughout the global markets, the federal government injected an $85 billion emergency loan into the insurer.
Just days later, the government seized Seattle-based Washington Mutual, marking the largest bank failure in U.S. history. WaMu's deposits and assets were acquired by JPMorgan for just $1.9 billion.
These events have now culminated in extraordinary moves by the federal government to try to fix the financial crisis that began more than a year ago.
Wachovia's problems stem largely from its acquisition of mortgage lender Golden West Financial Corp. in 2006 for roughly $25 billion at the height of the nation's housing boom. With that purchase, Wachovia inherited a deteriorating $122 billion portfolio of Pick-A-Payment loans, Golden West's specialty, which let borrowers skip some payments.
This summer, Wachovia reported a $9.11 billion loss for the second quarter, announced plans to cut 11,350 jobs—mostly in its mortgage business—and slashed its dividend. Wachovia also boosted its provision for loan losses to $5.57 billion during the second quarter, up from $179 million in the year-ago period.
Hey Johnny......cut spending your bond rating will skyrocket.
But then again the bond rating companies just went bankrupt.
Pat you realy are a moron because the "bond rating companies" did not go bankrupt. Bond rating firms Like Moody's are special firms that give ratings. But with all your head power you would know that right. Shows how much you know about finance. Maybe you should consult Middlebury's financial Guru Kelli Ann Bollard before you open your mouth. I guess Jon Dayton is just as stupid as everyone on wall street because they didn't see this coming. Lets blame him for the financial crisis for the whole conntry. Pat if you were such a smart man why then would you be a librarian that gets fired for touching young girls. real smart.
yea right. Just goes to show you what the bond rating crap means...they can even get their own houses in order let alone "help" others. What's Lehman's bond rating now ?
I don't know......your home values. your a Idiot you must live on White Ave. Stop drinking the cool Aid
It's not the Kool Aide thats affecting the White Avenue people.
I figured it out.
Deangelis has been dumping his old motor oil and anti freeze into Straw Pond for the last 40 years. These liquids seeped into the ground water and turned everybody into morons.
That explains pretty much everything. In fact it seeped over to George Street too, based on Elaine's behavior.
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