Insults Without Ideas

“Is Tom so dumb that he thought Middlebury wants or needs 600 affordable housing units.

Our only hope is that Gormley  and Savarese don't ruin the town before we

kick him out of office.

Tom whined about his home value, the fire dept stamps its feet because it wants a new truck, Tommy wants to spend the slush funds until he bankrupts the town..do you feel lied to? Do you feel the budget "cut" that got the budget "down" to a 10 percent INCREASE was all a big lie? Welcome to the club and vote "no" on the upcoming referendum.

Tommy Boy and his brain trust feel its time to bring out the second half of the budget. In spite of ripping us off for a 10 percent increase, Tommy Boy wants to charge you more for a FIRE TRUCK ( those parades are important ), a bridge, slush funds, etc.

Gormley likes to blame the budget increase  on Region 15.  Now, do you think Gormley and his yahoos have the SLIGHTEST idea of how one deals with a huge educational unit like Region 15? Their expertise stops at"gee, how red should we paint this old car?"

          Instead of dealing with the Region they come back to things they can understand like fuel tanks, trucks, jackets, pizza , old cars, etc.

         So they jacked you up for an extra fuel tank they don't need, now they want to jack you up by letting you vote to let them spend the slush funds and to buy more vehicles. MORE CASH, THEY WANT MORE CASH.

          DO YOU GET IT, YET?

      This town has turned into one big expensive joke.”

We sure do get it.  Mr. DeAngelis seems to have run out of ideas, and simply resorts to shrill. The chief spokesman for the previous administration continues to try to create an atmosphere of chaos and incompetence, that does not exist.  Why?  There are 948,000 reasons why.

Some common distortions:

1) Mr. DeAngelis continues distorting the budget even though it passed by substantial votes.  Region 15 increases its budget by almost 1 million dollars and Mr. DeAngelis does not notice. He also ignores the spending of the “rainy day” fund by the previous administration, (at the insistence of Mrs. Bollard), the loss of $371,377 in fees, $135,000 in lost interest, and finally Mr. St. John’s win/win Washington Dr. deal.   With all of that loss, Mr. Gormley managed to still cut 3.16% from the budget.  He should be commended for his efforts to keep taxes down.  The net-impact was a tax increase just under 6%, not 10% as Mr. DeAngelis reported.

2) New fire apparatus.  Again, Mr. DeAngelis characterizes new apparatus replacement as unimportant and just a parade toy for the MVFD.

The MVFD has been attempting to replace fire apparatus since the first specs for Engine 2 were drawn up in 2002.  Mr. St. John stonewalled all plans for apparatus replacement since 2003, allowing his animosity towards the MVFD to stand in the way of public safety.  

The result, one engine that is 27 years old, a rescue truck over 30 years old, and two front-line pumpers that are 20 and 21 years old.  In three years Engine 1 will be over 20 years old as well.  Year after year Mr. St. John allowed the apparatus to age without a long-term plan of replacement.  On the other hand, for at least the last 12 years, the MVFD has submitted a long-term apparatus replacement plan each and every year.

There has been money set aside by the BOF every year to pay for the new Engine 2.  The apparatus will be paid in full, and not bonded. 

First-due engines are not parade pieces. They do not leave town for parades.  If your house catches on fire, this engine will be the first at your door.  Whether life and property are saved during a fire, is determined during the first few minutes apparatus is on-scene.  Quick attack with big water dictates the end-result. The first due engine must be in peak condition. Relying on a 20 year old engine that has already failed this year en route to an accident on 84 is risky.

The firefighters who ride frontline fire apparatus are interior attack firefighters.  In other words, they enter the burning building and attack the fire from the inside. It is an extremely dangerous job. Many times our firefighters are forced to crawl through heavy smoke and heat, deep inside a structure, in order to locate the seat of the fire and extinguish it.

It is imperative at this attack engine is working perfectly.  The very lives of the interior attack firefighters and the fate of the structure, all rely on the attack pumper.  How long will Middlebury delay replacement to try to beat the odds before one of our firefighters is killed, because the apparatus fails when it is needed the most?

3)  Mr. DeAngelis ridicules Tom Gormley saying, “Gormley and his yahoos have the SLIGHTEST idea of how one deals with a huge educational unit like Region 15? “

Thats the problem, the educational unit is too big.  Time to make it a little smaller by looking at its budget and reducing programs and services that are unnecessary, wasteful, redundant, or ineffective. Is Middlebury spending too much for the services our children get in return? Should Southbury be paying more? 

The DeAngelis approach is to leave the Region alone and allow them to grow unchecked and increase our taxes yearly, while whacking a sledgehammer at the Town side, stripping-down Town services to the minimum. i.e. Library and Dump hours, and a fleet of obsolete fire apparatus.

4) Mr. DeAngelis feels that the Town was “jacked” by the new fuel tank being installed at Fire HQ.  I would characterized this as the exact opposite.  Taxpayers were being ”jacked” under the St. John administration when tens of thousands of gallons of premium diesel fuel meant for powering fire apparatus was being used to heat Fire HQ. Thats a waste of taxpayer money.  The new fuel tank at Fire HQ will allow the older tank to be filled with less expensive home heating oil.  The result?  The new tank will pay for itself in less than three years and the Town will realize savings from each year after.

The Bottom Line:

As much as Mr. DeAngelis does not want you to believe it, Tom Gormley and Bob Desmarais keep marching on in an honest and straightforward approach to undo some of the mistakes of the previous administration.  All without the support of a St. John controlled RTC, that’s chief accomplishment so far seems to be successfully dividing the Republican Party.

I believe that Middlebury residents see through the shrill, and hate that resonates from Mr. DeAngelis’s website. They recognize its source, and they reject it. Mr. DeAngelis described those who voted for the budget as “a_____es.” That is what he thinks of at least 1005 Middlebury residents.

Residents are sick and tired of empty, politically-motivated hate, without any real ideas.  Unproductive and insulting rhetoric is a reflection of the source rather than the target.

Will the problems of the Town be solved overnight?  No they won’t, but residents can go to sleep at night knowing that Tom Gormley and Bob Desmarais are working in an open and honest manner to try to correct these problems.