The Job No One Wants

The Providence Journal (June 26) was kind enough to list the candidates for Novembers Hopkinton Town election:

 Seven prospective Town Council candidates –– including four incumbents and two School Committee members –– are vying for the council’s five seats.

Running are Democrats Thomas E. Buck, Beverly Kenney and Sylvia K. Thompson, all incumbents; Republicans George M. Abbott (who currently serves on the school board) and Scott Bill Hirst; and independents Barbara Capalbo, an incumbent, and William Felkner, who, like Abbott, currently serves on the school board. Felkner had originally filed as a Republican.

Abbott and Felkner would have to give up their seats on the school board if they eventually run and were elected to the council.

Running for the open seat on the School Committee are Ronald Preuhs, who had been appointed to the committee last year to fill Lois Ruth Russell’s unexpired term, and Richard A. Vecchio.

In 2002, there were 11 candidates for Town Council.  In 2004 there were 10 candidates.  In 2006 there were also 10 candidates.  This year there are only 7.  The number may not seem like a substantial reduction but all other things being equal, the likelihood of winning a seat has gone from 50% to about 70%.  There will only be two losers this time around.  Obviously, not all things are equal and some people are more likely to win than others.  What also surprises me is that every candidate is a known quantity.  No one is running for the job from out of left field (or right field, if you prefer)

So why is no one interested in running for Town Council these days?  In the best of times the job is akin to a suicide mission.  With the American economy in the toilet, taxes through the roof and Chariho causing all sorts of headaches, I imagine the job is as bad as it has ever been.   

Personally, I am a little disappointed to see Felkner and Abbot in the race.  I would prefer them to hold tight and stay where they are.  The Town Council has a majority of sensible people on it (4 to 1, although Cordone can’t always be relied upon to use his common sense).  Felkner and Abbot hold the line the best anyone can on the School Board.  Bumping out Capalbo, Thompson or Buck doesn’t really do anyone but Chariho any favors, especially if Kenney remains entrenched.  And let’s hope she’s ousted.  I’m not sure what their motivation for getting off the School Board is but I assume they think they can do more from the Town Council than from the School Board.  I’m not sure they are right but we’ll find out soon enough.

 

Your Neighbor, Ishmael

James “Mr. Magoo” Mageau, smarter than we thought?

I have been reading and watching James Mageau (affectionately known as Mr. Magoo), acting President of the Charlestown Town Council for the past year-and-a-half.  In that time, I have formed what I believe is a pretty complete impression of his public persona.  He is arrogant, loud, obnoxious, obstinate, subject to flights of fancy, abusive of colleagues and likely to get into fisticuffs when he believes he has been insulted or just gets plain angry enough.   This is just the kind of guy we need in a delicate situation like the Chariho debacle (he said sarcastically).  His foibles have been well documented in the news.   This may also be his private persona but I have no idea.  I do know that he has pretty much made a mockery of local home rule.  I expect him to do and say inappropriate things on a regular basis.  I expect him to cause divisions within his town and pit the rich against the poor.  And finally, I expect him to make the Hopkinton Town Council look good (and that was a hard thing to do 2 years ago). 

So I was shocked when I read the following in the June 27^th edition of the Sun, under the title “Charlestown withdrawal talks put off until Fall”,

“The Town Council has voted on two occasions to support going to the General Assembly to authorize a referendum on the construction bonds for Chariho,” Mageau said. “Former Council President John O. Craig Jr. and (Councilor) Kate Waterman testified in support of the bill. I think that it’s no secret the town council has come out in favor of the bond issue.”
 “There’s no chance in hell that the town council will approve a letter of intent (which is required by the state to start the withdraw­al process) until after that referendum,” he added.

This is an obvious manoeuvre on the part of Charlestown, but a surprising bit of intelligence from Mageau.  What it means, in short, is that if the bond passes, Charlestown will not be leaving Chariho.  They will be required to pay off their portion of the bond even if they depart the system and they just aren’t stupid enough to do that.  But I am reassured to see that Mageau does realize that endorsing and initiating withdrawal at this junction is foolish and reckless with substantial long-term financial consequences.  Kudos to you, Mr. Magoo, maybe you are the right guy for the job?

I will put myself on record as saying I do not want to see Chariho dissolve.  I am not happy with Chariho.  But I also don’t want to pay more taxes than the $5000+ a year I am already paying.  In the long run, a regional system is the cheapest option.  Personally, I favor a limited withdrawal of K-6 (furthermore known as the Capalbo Plan).  It would give us a lot of local control, it would marginally increase our taxes and it would give us more pride in our Town and our kids. Hell, I’ll canvas the Town personally for a bond to refurbish the 1904 building for all our 5th and 6th graders (Hope Valley and Ashaway).

All things considered, I am glad to see that someone in Charlestown realizes the economic consequences of rash decisions.  If the bond fails, they probably will leave the system.  It will still be foolish and reckless but at least they are putting a little more consideration into their rhetoric lately.

 

Deceit in Charlestown

Charlestown has been talking about leaving Chariho for a long time.  They have been so insistent that a few years back they even had a referendum on the issue.  It failed. More residents were interested in staying in Chariho than leaving.  It was close, but it still failed.  

So why does Charlestown want to leave Chariho?  You may think you know the answer, but you’re probably wrong.  The reason that Charlestown wants out of Chariho is because there is a small but very vocal and politically active group of people within the town that simply want local control of their schools.

I’ll bet you thought the reason why Charlestown wants out of Chariho is because Hopkinton, a town of illiterate, child hating woodchoppers won’t approve a bond.  But that is not true.  The bond is simply being used as a wedge against Hopkinton to further the goals of this small group of people who want local control. Maybe they don’t like Chariho in general. Maybe they don’t like Ricci.  Maybe they think “Chariho” is a stupid name.  I have no idea, but they don’t actually care about the bond.  Charlestown has voted down just as many bonds as Hopkinton in the past 20 years.  All they really want is their own school system.

When the whole issue of Charlestown leaving Chariho reared it’s ugly head the last time, in 2004, the people who wanted to leave Chariho were honest about the whole thing.  They declared openly that they just wanted local control.  But that did not work.  There were enough people in Charlestown smart enough to realize how expensive their own school system would be and they put the kibash on the whole thing.  But the small and vocal group in Charlestown has gotten cleverer in 4 years.  Now they are tring to unite Charlestown against a common enemy, (the dumb woodchoppers) and it will probably work.  They say we want tax equalization and we won’t support bonds and thus we are uncooperative and obstructionist.  They are right.  But they don’t really care about the bond and they know we can’t force tax equalization.  No matter how much we holler about it, it cannot happen without Charlestown’s cooperation.  The bond is a red herring. 

In yesterday’s Westerday Sun, there is a report from the Charlestown ad hoc Chariho Withdrawal Update Committee.  They have come to the conclusion that Charlestown must leave Chariho by 2012 and will build a middle school and high school. 

 From the article is the following quote:

 “We find that a decades-long stale­mate on the issue of tax equalization among [Charlestown, Hopkinton and Richmond] has crippled the Chariho School District’s ability to improve facilities,” their report reads. “While the Chariho District provides many successful programs, it suffers from infrastructure problems that detract from learning. … The most significant problems of the district, however, are not the repairs needed at any one time; they are the longstanding political issues that pre­vent the passing of bonds to improve facilities.”

But, if Charlestown agreed to tax equalization, Hopkinton would support all the bonds Chariho could float.  And Charlestown would still pay less with tax equalization that if they had to build and maintain their own school system.  Everybody saves money and the schools get rebuilt.  This is a no-brainer.  This is the cheapest way to do things, hands down.

So why do they fight tax equalization and favor a much more expensive Charlestown School System?  Because they want local control at any cost but know that the argument for local control will not sway the cost conscious citizens of Charlestown.  But calling Hopkinton names might just do the trick.  We have become a scape goat to further a political agenda which really has nothing to do with us.  

Your Neighbor, Ishmael

I’m sorry ma’am, but he died on the table…

According to the June 22nd edition of the Providence Journal, the tax credits for the Hopkinton movie studio were “not approved” as the RI Legislature passed next fiscal year’s budget onto the governor and closed up shop for the summer.  A search of the RI Legislative database indicates that the bill was tabled on May 28^th and no further action has been taken, effectively killing the bill until the next session convenes later this year.  Hal Katersky’s people have said they will not come to Hopkinton without the “movie studio” credit so unless they change their minds, I guess we can all agree that Elvis has indeed, left the building.  You can read the text of the bill below, it’s fascinating:

http://www.rilin.state.ri.us/billtext08/housetext08/h7456.pdf

Going back a little further, it seems that not everyone in the State is so convinced this whole project isn’t just an exercise in futility.  The Providence Journal reports from May 19^th,

Costantino [chair of the House finance committee] questioned whether the state can afford to assist a movie studio, given the budget deficit.

“If you’re going to say you have jobs, then you’ll have to prove you have the jobs and then you’ll get the credit,” Costantino said, offering a possible amendment. “It’s as simple as that because I don’t think Hopkinton wants an empty building.”  [Hopkinton Underground Note:  Damn straight, says I!]

And from the same article, we learn that Rhode Island already has a movie studio in North Kingstown.  It’s small but it’s fully functional.  Unfortunately, business is slow.

What nobody said in last night’s hearing is that Rhode Island already has an 85,000 square-foot studio. North Kingstown’s Kay Studios offers shooting and production spaces and five acres of outdoor lots. Kay also owns a smaller facility in East Providence that’s set up for special effects and television shoots. 

Now the guys who run this operation say that business is slow because we wanted to implement a 20% cap on movie production.  This didn’t happen however, because the amendment to the law was tabled, which included the 20% cap plus the movie studio.  The current law can be found in section 44-31.25 of the RI statutes and limits the credit to 25% of a motion picture productions investment.   The law reads as follows:

The amount of the credit shall be twenty-five percent (25%) of the state certified production costs incurred directly attributable to activity within the state, provided that the primary locations are within the state of Rhode Island and the total production budget as defined herein is a minimum of three hundred thousand dollars ($300,000). The credit shall be earned in the taxable year in which production in Rhode Island is completed, as determined by the film office in final certification pursuant to subsection 44-31.2-6(c).

Remember how I said these credits can be sold?  That’s all spelled out in section 44-31.2-9, if you are interested.

But the folks at Kay Studios say that our tax cap is causing LA angina over filming in Rhode Island, driving production to Massachusetts.  Excuse me for saying so, but that is a load of crap.  Massachusetts already has an established production infrastructure and the city of Boston.  How many movies have you seen filmed in or near Boston?  The answer is hundreds.  How many have been filmed in or around any of Rhode Island?  The answer is a half-a-dozen.  Massachusetts is a better site with a famous city, famous teams and gets national play.  We simply do not.  It has little to do with a 20% vs. a 25% credit (both RI and MA have a 25% cap right now into the Fall). The exact quote from this article is:

“We’ve heard L.A. is not looking at Rhode Island because they’re not sure if we’re committed to the movie industry,” Gormley said. “So for now we’re on hold.”

And I have heard that the moon is made of cheese but I’m not planning on building a lunar cheese factory any time soon.  And one more note, they are now planning on building two movie studios in Massachusetts, outside of Boston.  But why not put them in the Berkshires, it’s such a lovely place?  Because it’s all about location, location, location and niether we nor the Berkshires have it. 

Grudgematch: Cordone vs. Dolan

If you are reading this blog, you probably know that Vincenzo Cordone is the president of the Hopkinton Town Council.  What you may not have known, however, is that he can whine and moan with the best of them.  

On June 10^th, Cordone sent a letter to the editor of the Westerly Sun complaining that the “Debate over Chariho funding has sunk to a new, disturbing level”.   Basically, the Chariho School Committee Chairman (Bill Day) and the Richmond Town Council President (Joseph Reddish) had a good chuckle at Cordone’s expense on the televised feed from the Chariho School Committee meeting on May 5th.  Cordone worked as the service manager for Dunn’s Corner Repair and was laid off.  They thought this was funny and made a number of jokes about the fact.

Now obviously, the behavior of Day and Reddish was childish and asinine.  Some will say that childish and asinine are the prerequsities to be on the Chariho School Committee, but that is beside the point.  The fact that Cordone took the time to chastise these boobs for their behavior not only draws attention to the behavior but also makes Cordone look like a giant baby. 

What is also unfortunate is that Cordone’s letter was disingenuous.  He states that,

“Not one of us has resorted to personal attacks, name-calling or the other dishonorable tactics that have been routinely used against us.”

And that may well be true in this case (as the Town Council is concerned regarding the current Chariho debacle) but Cordone has resorted to dishonorable tactics in the past.  To decide he doesn’t want to play the game now is ridiculous, ingenuous and hypocritical.  Should someone go tell his mommy a bully is picking on him?  This is a case of where the “living in glass houses” rule applies.

It’s not funny.  None of it is. But sadly, this is what politics are all about.  We may not like it, but politics in America is all about smearing your opponent.  If you cannot win your argument on merit, you attack your opponent.  And even if you can win on merit, you make sure you will win in the long run by smearing your opponent.  And Cordone knows this, he has a B.A. in political science from UCONN.  Are personal attacks a surprise to him?  It’s not as though he ran for the Council on a lark and can’t honestly believe how nasty local politics are.  Cordone moved to Hopkinton in 2003 and ran for Town Council in 2004, having been a Rhode Island resident for a total of one year?  Although I have been unable to confirm it, I have been told that he ran for Town Council in Stonington prior to this and lost. I have confirmed that he lived in Pawcatuck CT before moving to Hopkinton.   It looks to me as though he moved to Hopkinton so he could run for Town Council.  

And why not? There isn’t much else you can do with a B.A. in politics except run for office.  Any office.  Who cares what office, who cares what state, who cares what town?  He doesn’t.  But the long and the short of it is that he is not a naive as he wants us to think.

So why bother even mentioning this now?  Because Ms. Doreen Dolan responded to Cordone’s letter to the editor with one of her own.  Basically, she feels that she has been personally attacked since September, over the original Chariho bond vote (she implicates a member of the Hopkinton Town Council).  I’d hate to put words in her mouth but she appears a little sarcastic about Cordone’s complaint.  She does hope that,

“the public will see through behavior such as this and seek out the facts in this debate on a bond for Chariho.”

Well, fat chance.  But I do have some good advice for Mr. Cordone.  When I was a child, my mother taught me an important lesson: sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never harm me.  I hope that helps. 

Your Neighbor, Ishmael

A Day Late And A Dollar Short

I was listening to the Dan York show the other day and he was interviewing Governor Carcieri. I don’t usually listen to York, he spends a lot of his time fanning the flames of discontent and whining without actually having any facts. That aside, he was lobbing softballs at the Governor and he asked him about casinos. Carcieri said something very insightful (for a change). He pointed out that when every state has a casino, it no longer benefits any state to have a casino. He didn’t clarify the issue beyond that but he is right. People will go to a casino more frequently when it is close and if you are not drawing out-of-staters, it’s just taking the money from your own low and low-to-middle class. It makes them poorer and it makes the state poorer.  More specifically, he called it just another tax and that’s close to the truth.  The truth is, however, that a tax is much better because at least all the money that you take from these poor suckers then goes straight to the State and Harrah’s doesn’t get a cut.  How much money do they need anyway?

The same is pretty much true for movie studios. If everyone has a movie studio, then there is no real benefit to anyone having one. Lets be honest, there is no way that New England could support a movie production facility (like the one being proposed at exit 2) in every state. It is unlikely that there is even a need for two of them. And that is really the crux of this post.

Plymouth Rock Studios (http://www.plymouthrockstudios.com/) is being proposed for development in Plymouth Massachusetts.  It appears to be very similar to the operation being proposed for Exit 2, but with some notable exceptions:

1.  Plymouth Rockis being built at $282 million.  The Exit 2 Project is only a $75 million venture

2.  Plymouth Rock is being built by people who actually ran movie studios.  The Exit 2 Project is being proposed by a guy who has a hard time staying off the wrong side of a court room.

3.  It looks like the Plymouth Rock people are dead serious.  See the following link about licensing for the famous Hollywood sign to be used in Plymouth:  http://www.businesswire.com

4.  Massachusetts already had an established and thriving movie production infrastructure which appears to be getting larger.  This comes courtesy of the NYTimes (http://www.nytimes.com).  The article is mostly a lot of guesstimated numbers and anecdotal information, but it does at least show that Massachusetts can support movie production in a way that Rhode Island cannot.

5.  Plymouth Rock Studios has a kick ass website.  The Exit 2 Project doesn’t even know what the internet is.  

So is there really enough movie studio business in the Northeast for Hopkinton, Plymouth Rock and whatever other Johnny-come-lately decides to build in Connecticut?  You can have gas stations on every corner and no one complains.  We all need gas.  But how many movie studios do you need in New England?  And the last sentence of the NYTimes articles spells it out pretty clearly, movie producers are whores and will go to which ever location gives them the biggest bribe:

“It’s about the money,” Ms. Peri acknowledges. “If they can get 42 percent rebate in Michigan, they’ll just pack up and find a way to make Michigan look like Paris”

And eventually they will be getting 50 and 75% tax credits somewhere else (and god forbid rebates) and happy little Hopkinton will be left with a bankrupt movie studio that that amounts to another piece of blighted landscape.  How about we start thinking of some sustainable activities for once?  How about we choose NOT to jump on the bandwagon heading for a cliff.

Your Neighbor, Ishmael

Lessons from Connecticut

We could probably learn a lot of lessons from what we should and should not do from the successes and failures of our nearest neighbor, Connecticut. Although I am not sure we can yet learn anything from their experiences with movie-production tax credits, at least they have some data we might try and analyze.

Before I talk about the data, I feel it is necessary to point out that I really don’t like move-production tax credits. The reason for this is two fold. Firstly, it increases state debt/lost revenue. This is bad because this revenue is used to pay for schools, roads, police, healthcare and every other public service we take for granted. Without this tax revenue, we find ourselves in the current situation: no money in the state budget to pay for all the things we have come to expect and need. Lost your job? Too bad, no money for unemployment. Being robbed? Too bad, no money for police. Want to educate your teenager? Too bad, we closed URI, RIC and CCRI. You get the point. Now you can (and will) argue that tax credits bring jobs and increase local people’s business. This has yet to be seen but the small amount of revenue the average shmuck may earn from working on a TEMPORARY job with movie production is a joke. The money lost to pay for public services is significant. Let’s be honest, the people really making all the money from movie-production already have plenty of it.

The second reason I do not like these credits is because they are patently immoral. They are a legal bribe. I can’t go bribe a the zoning department to let me build in a wetland but the State can bribe a developer to come put in a shopping mall, big box, movie-studio, whatever. I have no problem with shopping malls, big boxes or movie studios. I like movies and cheap toasters. Really. I love to toast the crap out of things. But if you want to build any of these businesses, you should build them because the need is there, the location is good, the business model is sound and the financing exists. You should not build this stuff because you have nothing better to do with your time and will make lots of money in tax credits from the public. Yes, I realize that “everybody is doing it”. I know that every Town and every State has their own legalized bribery scheme in operation and if we don’t also have one, we lose out. And I know we would jump off a bridge if they did it too. We are stupid lemmings. Stupid, stupid, immoral lemmings. I know it but I don’t like it one bit.

Here’s the data. The New London Day, a true pillar of the journalistic arts, published a story last Sunday about movie-production credits in Connecticut entitled, “Enthusiasm, not evidence, backs up tax breaks for film producers”, by Ted Mann. Well, you can see where this is going. The data that is presented is that currently, $55 million in eligible movie-production dollars have been spent. Sadly, only $43 million stayed in Connecticut. Luckily, $20 million of new gross state product was produced. But at a 30% credit, the state actually incurred a debt of $16.5 million dollars (that piece of information is surprisingly lacking from the article). Effectively, private individuals/corporations in the state earned $43 million dollars but the state as a whole (the cop paying, garbage removing, road paving, healthcare providing part of the state) lost money. But somebody earned $43 million. Now you, reading this post: do you think it is remotely likely that you would have earned any of this money if you lived in Connecticut? Maybe? Here is a plausible scenario: suppose you owned a little restaurant where one of the movies was produced. Maybe you would have sold 100 more donuts. Wa-ho! Call your wife! It’s steaks tonight! And a week later, you would be no better off than before. Read Mr. Markham’s quote on my previous post and you further realize how ridiculously unlikely it is that there is much benefit for the locals. Remember when Richard Geer came to Rhode Island in February to shoot a movie? It was observed that the license plate on every single production vehicle was from OUT OF STATE! Mr. Markham seems justified in his concern that this is a losing proposition. Maybe Connecticut actually has a fully formed movie and television production infrastructure, it is apparent we do not. It is also apparent that any previous infrastructure that exists in Connecticut was developed without public tax credits. That’s called the impact of market forces, “see a need, fill a need” as a famous Disney character has been known to say. That same character did not say, “give out free money to get movie stars to come to our state”.

So what about the $20 million in new gross state product? That is a completely made up number. It is a guess, it is a fabrication. It has no basis in reality. It is the “enthusiasm” in Mr. Manns article. The figure could have easily been set at $10 million or $5 million or $150 million. However, $5 million doesn’t seem very substantial and no one would believe $150 million. $20 million is just a strategically appropriate number, designed to look good and believable.

So is there really any benefit to any of this? Is there any benefit to movie-production credits? Unless you own a company that rents movie trailers or stage lighting or camera cranes, probably not. Or unless selling 100 more donuts is going to set you up for life. This is just another example of large corporations making money at the expense of the public good. Large corporations getting larger while the state flounders. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know you’re saying, “But Ishmael, Ronald Reagan says that money trickles down”. Well, Reagan’s dead, the country is a mess and all that has trickled down is the giant ball of rolling crap that speculators, banks and mortgage companies have so kindly delivered to us on a crap covered platter. There is plenty of the other kind of trickling going on in Providence. You know, evicted homeowners trickling urine into the streets because they don’t have a pot to piss in. How about they get a tax credit?

If you want to make a movie in Rhode Island, feel free to come and do it. We’re happy to have you. We’re nice, friendly New Englanders. But don’t steal from us while you’re at it. I am afraid to say that tax credits for movie-production amount to a ridiculously short-sighted flash-in-the-pan equivalent to corporate welfare. And you can take that to the bank (assuming they will finance your movie).

The only caveat here is that a movie studio (as opposed to a movie, which just films in the state for a few weeks) might actually bring some long term jobs and stability. But that depends on a lot of assumptions, including a sound business model, an actual need for services, some financing and a reputable developer. I have seen none of these when it comes to the fiasco over at Exit 2.

Your neighbor, Ishmael

Is the Hope Valley Movie Studio Dead? Let’s Hope So…

It looks like the movie studio may indeed be dead, or at least in the middle of it’s death throws.  The Rhode Island legislature has proposed capping the maximum allowable credit for movie productions in the state to $15 million.  For most productions, this is probably acceptable.  The movie studio is a substantially larger operation however, and is very upset by this fact.  They want a 20% tax credit.  Ok, lets do the math: 20% of $75 million (the projected cost of the studio) is what? $15 million! So why are they so upset?  Your guess is as good as mine but I have a feeling that something fishy is going on here and the legislature just called their bluff. Why does it matter if they get a flat $15 million or 20% of $75 million.  Isn’t that 6 of one, half dozen of the other?  I guess not…

Do you know what a tax credit is?  It amounts to a legal way of bribing someone to come to your state.  But it’s much worse than a tax break.  I can understand giving out a tax break here and there.  But a tax credit is resold by the company to make more money.  It’s not a “credit”, it’s more like actual cash.   It will actually increase the state budget by whatever amount is given.  It is not lost revenue for Little Rhody, it is more DEBT!

Some other unresolved issues surrounding the move studio:

1.     Originally they claimed it would employ 550 people.  Then the number jumped to 2,200.  Now Kennedy is saying “over 1000″?

2.     Originally they claimed they had gotten the rights to buy all the property surrounding the facility.  This turned out to be patently untrue, it looks  like only a handful of homeowners have agreed to sell, if necessary.  This all came out at a public meeting the company had with the local community.  It was rather embarrassing to watch them wiggle and fidget around the issue.

3.     The guy running this operation, Hal Katersky, has had considerable legal troubles in the past on similar operations, amounting to alleged  fraud.  See the following link: 

www.nlpc.org/view.asp?action=viewArticle&aid=2035  and this one: www.thecitizen.info/2007/04/abq_studios_own.html

4.     Oh wait, he tried the same thing in Philadelphia last year.  When he fails here, he’ll probably be moving on to Portland or Nashua.  See these links: 

www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/stories/2007/08/06/daily16.html www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/stories/2007/08/20/story2.html

5.     And it appears that Katersky engaged in alleged fraud in the state of Oklahoma, to such a degree that his partner is serving jail time and he has been forbidden from ever selling unregistered securities in the state of Oklahoma.  

See this link:  www.thecitizen.info/2007/04/albuquerque_stu.html

6.     Let no one miss the fact that the same site indicates he was named in over 30 lawsuits since the 1980’s in Los Angeles alone.  Oh, and he filed for bankruptcy in 1997.  Have you ever filed for bankruptcy?  I hear it’s not the best way to build a reputation for success…

Now, I can understand that being sued and losing money is sometimes the cost of buisness.  But Hal Katersky’s record should give us all pause.  Doesn’t this seem a bit fishy?  Doesn’t the Town Council find this a bit bizarre?  Why have Kennedy and Cordone publicly supported a man who appears to have had far more failures and legal troubles than successes? 

Neighbors, this is bad.  This will not turn out well for us and likely not for Hal Katersky, given his previously well documented track record.  Now Kennedy is all upset about the fact that,

“there’s not another project out there that would bring forth over 1,000 new jobs to the state of Rhode Island.” (Westerly Sun)

But wait, wasn’t that 2,200 jobs?

And here is some more food for thought, from local Westerly citizen George Markham.  He states in a Sun Letter to the Editor:  

“I find curious the proposed plan for a 200-room hotel. Film crews and actors are frequently paid a per diem stipend for room and board when filming on location. Could these hotel rooms be used for out-of-state union employees? The Rhode Island Film and Television Office is the agency that assists film production companies with coordinating activities when shooting in Rhode Island. Their Web site has a link to the film and television unions who are qualified to provide labor to production com panies filming in the Ocean State. Out of nine unions listed, none list a 401 area code; they are all out-of state.”

Yes, Mr. Markham, curious indeed.

So, does anyone else find this whole thing a little fishy?  Or is it just me?  I think we are being sold a bill of goods that isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.  Perhaps our elected officials should pay more attention to the facts and less attention to whether or not Jennifer Anniston or Brad Pitt will be stopping in for a visit.  

If you want to see how this story turns out, rent a copy of Robert Preston in “The Music Man” or go buy a copy of the Simpson’s Season 4, you are looking for the episode entitled, “Marge vs. The Monorail”.  In either case, things won’t end as well for us as they did for Springfield or River City (and not even a giant donut will save us).

-Your Neighbor, Ishmael

Hopkinton Budget Passes By 17 Votes

In our second historic budget referendum, the voters of Hopkinton approved the municipal budget by a margin of 17 people, 135 to 118.  That’s pretty slim if you ask me.  Despite the fact that the budget only moves the mill rate from $14.19 to $14.47, it points to continuing discontent and anxiety about local property taxes.  Combine that with the weak value of the dollar, recession and state budget woes and I am surprised the Hopkinton budget passed at all.  We’re all watching the train wreck in Stonington.  The 1.97% tax increase certainly was not the 18% increase of 2004 and look at how close the vote was.  I wish we had had the referendum in ‘04.  I have heard Councilor Kenney say in the past that the Hopkinton budget may someday shrink.  Well, it hasn’t happened yet but the Council may seriously think about it the next time around.  Even a flat budget may work.  I’m not sure that the electorate is going to allow the Town Council to spend like its going out of style for too much longer.  

I was personally thrilled to see the road bond and the GIS fund transfer tank.  What was the Town Council thinking?  A $3.5 million bond, for roads, in a recession, when the price of oil is at a record high and people are actually driving LESS?  I don’t care if DiLibero does get more phone calls about roads than anything else (as he was quoted in the Sun).  That just points to the fact that the problems in Hopkinton probably don’t justify a Town Manger and his $70,000 a year salary.  This is a rural town. I have more tractors and horses on my road than cars.  Road bond, sheesh (he says with audible disgust)!  And I think we are all well aware that the GIS position is a boondoggle.  We don’t need the position and we certainly don’t need money in a restricted account for a position we don’t need.  Say that 3 times fast.  

- Your Neighbor, Ishmael  (ps All comments are moderated so don’t get excited if they don’t pop right up).