How is this better?

The governor offered the state employees 12 days of furloughs 2 weeks ago.  For 12 days, they had to go home and not get paid.  The unions said no, and his offer turned into layoffs.  Now frankly, a negotiation is not about making the deal worse everytime you go to the table.  You’d never sell a car that way.  But OK.  The unions caved and it looked like the new deal was going to be 8 days this year, 4 days next year with no pay.  BUT you still had to come to work!  How is being not paid to work better than not getting paid and staying home?  I’m no fan of either Council 94 or Carcieri, but Carcieri is being pretty nasty about it.  Obviously the legislature plays a role too, but I just don’t understand  how you can call any of this a negotiation.

Obama Can’t Say He is Sorry.

I’m busy during the summer and Hopkinton is pretty quite this time of year so I won’t have much to post for the next couple months (or the last one).

But I had to comment on President Obama’s stupidity.  In remarking on the Cambridge Police’s performance he has made a major error.  Obama said the Department had acted stupidly in arresting Henry Gates on his front porch.  I reiterate:  The President of the United States called a local PD stupid for making a routine arrest.

I have no love for the police.  In Hopkinton especially, we have too many of them.  And if you read my previous posts, it appears that the HPD (the Chief in particular) has been up to some pretty unsavory business.   But I recognize the importance of the police in general.   I am not interested in being a cop.  So I pay taxes so someone else can do that job.  And they have a hard job.  And some of them are bullies.  And some of them are jerks.  But when one of them, jerk or not, shows up at my house to stop someone from breaking and entering, misunderstanding or not, I am not going to abuse that cop.  I will probably thank them.

Whether Crowley acted appropriately is not important.  He acted within his discretion.   He may have pushed the bounds of disorderly conduct but he didn’t break the law.   He had an irate man on his hands so he dealt with it.  Henry Gates, on the other hand, is a self-righteous asshole.  I know nothing of the man and his politics but I know an idiot when I see one.  Henry Gates is one of them.

Some rules all Americans should know:

1. Be polite when the cops come knocking to protect your property and person.
2. Don’t call a cop a racist just because you are a different race from the cop.
3. Don’t yell at a cop.  Ever.  It just pisses them off and results in your arrest.
4. After giving your identification, don’t ever step onto the porch with a cop.  Stay in your home and shut the door calmly and politely if you do not want to interact with said cop.  Reference your lawyer.  They WILL go away.
5. If you are the President of the United States, shut your goddamn mouth when you have no idea what you are talking about.
6. If you are the President of the United States, say you are sorry when you act like an idiot (i.e. calling cops stupid).  We will forgive you.  But if you insist you were correct, we will be happy to vote you out of office in 2012.

I voted for Obama.  Despite the stupidity of Gates and the, shall we say, aggressiveness of Crowley, Obama is the one who screwed the pooch.  And I did not vote for a man who cannot say he is sorry, that guy was supposed to be McCain.  Obama is the only one who clearly made a mistake by speaking on a subject where he was 1. biased and 2. completely unaware of the facts.  He still has not said he is sorry.  And 41% of Americans agree with me.  Mr. President, just say you are sorry.  No one cares about a stupid beer summit.  We want humility.  Have a little mea culpa.

In other news:  The truck stop was halted for now.  200 or so people showed up to fight it.  Great job!

And the Town Council approved the HPD’s most recent contract.  It seems fine.  I don’t really care.  If we could dump 4 cops I’d be thrilled to offer each remaining cop a 5% increase per year.  Oh, and we would have to boot the Chief out of the union.

Better Late Than Never (or the Transparency Train Derailed)

I just couldn’t pick a title.

“Better late than never” because the Sun finally got its butt in gear and reported on the Hopkinton ticket quota.  ”The Transparency Train derailed” because Felkner is full of  proverbial “no comments” for this story; which is funny because he can’t shut his mouth when it comes to the School Board.  Perhaps he is educable!  Has he learned how not to say the first thing that comes into his head?  Or perhaps he is just angling for a bigger political career and doesn’t want to ruin it by saying something stupid?  Again.

Anyway, the point of the Sun’s article is that the Town Council insists that they did not request the policy, it is the Police Department’s business and the Council knew nothing about it.  I happen to believe their excuse.  I suspect that the Manager did have something to do with it, after all, he is the Chief’s boss, but the Town Council doesn’t have a freaking clue about what is going on in Town, nor do they care, so they are automatically off the hook.

Some delightful quotes from the article:

DiLibero, who is out of town for the week, told The Sun Monday on his cell phone, “I just don’t want to comment on it any further.”

Bad time to go on vacation, eh Billy?  Don’t worry, the cops are actually all over the place all the sudden so I suspect this will fester for a few more months.

Councilor Beverly P. Kenney said that, prior to learning of the leaked policy, “I believe the police department was doing their job.”  She also declined to elaborate on the matter, saying, “I have not had a chance to investigate it.” She said she plans to speak with DiLibero first as “that’s the chain of command for us.”

Excellent.  I am ever so comforted when Delores Umbridge speaks.  Call out the High Inquisitors!

Capalbo declined to say what she thought of the policy because of conflicting statements from Baruti and Police Chief John S. Scuncio reported in the Journal story on why it was implemented.

I’m sure she was thinking, “colossal stupidity”.  I know I am.

Thompson said she is confident the issue will be resolved internally by the department, saying — like Capalbo — it is a personnel matter to be dealt with administratively, not by the council. She said she does not plan to tell the police department what to do with the policy.

It is a good thing we didn’t elect these people to actually do anything!   The Town Council cannot interfere in an investigation, they can tell the Police Department to cut it out with the quota.  But that would require some  testicles, figuratively speaking.

Although Thompson noted she has yet to read the email on the policy, she said, “As a resident, I find it distasteful.”

I am glad someone does.

Scuncio and Baruti did not return repeated phone calls seeking comment. 

Smart move, their first one so far.

And life goes on.  Keep you eyes open, in the past 3 days I have seen more Hopkinton cops than I have seen in the past year.  They are diligently working on their quota and they are coming for you!

Next Moves

I have been thinking about how the Felkner/Chariho Budget issues are going to be addressed and I have some predictions.  Mind you, I don’t have a lot more insight into the decision making processes of the people involved than anyone else, but there are some options which are strategically more sound than others.

Felkner:  Felkner won’t be able to accomplish much or make much noise on the Town Council.  They don’t really do much.  The Town Manager runs the Town and he is a status-quo-type guy.  The Town Council is a giant rubber stamp.  So Felkner will probably resign the Town Council and be appointed to the School Board.  The Town Council will get along just fine without Felkner (they can usually muster at least a 3 vote majority anyway) and they want someone on the School Board who will make some noise: that’s Felkner.  Until his ego got the better of him and Felkner decided to take two elected positions, I had some respect for him.  I have a lot less now but he can still fight windmills effectively, or as effectively as anyone can fight a windmill.

Chariho:  I’m not sure if they will sue until the next budget gets busted.  I suspect that Ricci will make some token cuts, maybe $200K worth, and send the budget back to the voters.  And it will probably pass the next time around.  I don’t think Ricci expected it to fail and I don’t think he and the School Board “got out the vote”, so to speak.  They will the next time around.  The budget failed by 1 vote.  People who voted “no” last time are satisfied but those who voted “yes” are pissed.  Anger can work miracles.  Look at the 2006 and 2008 elections, the Dems won on the basis of angry people.  I may be wrong but I think all the “no” votes have been cast, we’ve seen all those angry people.  Now it is time for the rest.

Wow, a Tuesday Twofer!

It’s not Tuesday anymore, but both of these things happened yesterday:

1.  As you probably know, the Chariho budget failed by one vote, 526-527.  Town by town:  Charlestown was 224-142, Richmond was 142-125 and Hopkinton was 160-260.

2.  The RI Supreme Court says that Felkner cannot be on the Town Council and the School Board.  Thus he can keep his Town job but has effectively resigned the School Board.

I’m not so surprised about the Chariho vote.  I expected Richmond to stomp the budget but they did not.  They did have a lot of “no” votes relative to “yes” votes and they likely pushed it over the line.  Now we get to watch the fireworks.  Will they sue or will Chariho fix its budget?  I’m betting on a lawsuit.

I was, however, extremely surprised by the Felkner decision.  I expected him to win although it seemed that the RI SC was somewhat antagonistic during the hearing.  They used the Town Charter and the doctrine of incompatibility against him.  I still can’t see using the Charter.  The damn thing is so full of holes you can argue either position and I think the stronger position is the one that allows him to do exactly what he was doing.  But that was because of the technical language.  The court made a point of interpreting intent.  It is a harder thing to do but I think they got that right, the framers of the Charter never envisioned allowing someone to serve on both the Council and the Board.  Regardless, I am honestly pleased to see the decision which was ultimately produced.  In the end, it may have been a political decision but I’m not sure we’ll ever know.

Personally, I think that the conflict of interest between sitting on the Town Council and the School Board is significant.  No one has attempted to do this since Chariho was founded.  It’s just common sense to most people, you don’t take 2 elected positions, especially two that are so likely to be in conflict!

Thanks for all the fun, Bill.  I guess your life will be a lot quieter sitting on the Town Council (they don’t really do all that much but complain about Chariho- you fit in perfectly).  But you could always start hacking away at the municipal budget if you get lonely and want to see your name in the papers some more!  Heck, why not rewrite the Charter to let yourself serve on two elected positions?  Now there is an idea, provided you show up to some of the meetings….

The Pot Calling the Kettle Black

In yesterdays Westerly Sun, the following sentence led off an article about Hopkinton and Chariho:

HOPKINTON — Members of the Town Council criticized the Chariho Regional School District’s proposed $53.32-million spending plan for 2009-10, accusing the School Committee of not following orders from town officials to slash expenses below those allocated for this year. [Following orders?  I did not realize that School Board reports to the Town Council- wouldn't that be a hell of a conflict-of-interest for Felkner, to have to report to himself?]

Followed by:

Councilors said they fear that if potential cuts in state aid are not set off by reductions in education expenses, they will have to cut town services. Education is about 75 percent of Hopkinton’s spending plan for the next fiscal year, which begins July 1. [I wonder how much goes towards duplicate policing, you know, the work we pay the Hopkinton Police to do that the State Police already do?]

With this sprinkled in for good measure:

Capalbo also noted that taxpayers in Stonington rejected the town’s proposed budget four times last summer, forcing officials to make further reductions, including education funds.
  “If that’s what it takes, I would like to see that,” she said.

 

Now here is the thing:  I don’t give a rats furry ass about “Town Services” in Hopkinton.  I don’t use them.  And since this seems to be the rationale we use to assail Chariho (despite how stupid this rationale is), I can use it here for my purposes.  The Town of Hopkinton proposes to raise our taxes on municipal services this year.  Admittedly, I think the Town has done a good job by proposing a small raise, but it is still a raise.  Hopkinton IS NOT laying anyone off to keep the municipal budget level funded, nor are they cutting salaries like up in Northern RI.  So why should Chariho do any better?  Chariho is planning a small increase (about 1%) and Hopkinton is planning a small increase (less than 1%).  And in fact, Hopkinton’s share of the Chariho budget is down 0.23% from last year.  Obviously, we have no idea how much state-aid is going to get chopped so theoretically, we could be on the hook for a 5% tax increase (can’t go higher than that, State law, right-  HA HA HA, like they won’t just get a legislative over ride and screw us for 18% again).  But if Hopkinton can’t clean up its own house by dumping useless positions (I mean you, GIS guy) and cutting to the bone, why should the school district?  On a single day, Chariho SERVICES more people than Hopkinton does in a month (albeit most of them are small and can’t vote and are thus considered worthless citizens).  

This is a case of the Hopkinton Town Council saying, “do what we say, not as we do”.  When the Town Council (and Mr. Manager) can cut Hopkinton’s budget, then they can strong-arm Chariho with the appropriate amount of self-righteousness.

Oh, and Mrs. Capalbo, how about we vote down the Hopkinton Budget in June?  Should we obstruct all those important Town Services by voting against the Hopkinton budget and forcing you to deal with level funding?  And even if we do, Chariho will still get their cut!  The only way to stop them is to vote down the Chariho referendum and I doubt we’ve got the votes for that.  Besides, threatening Chariho has gotten so passe.  Foist the blame on someone else all you want, you are doing nothing to solve our Towns financial woes and have become quite transparent in your scapegoating.

A Guy Without A Clue

Here’s a letter to the editor of the Sun that deserves a retort: 

Town, state employees should try seeing how others live

I triple dog dare all politicians, school teachers and just plain faculty, emergency personnel and all town employees here in the entire state of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, to take a pay cut of 50 percent of their pay for one month.  No complaints either on this dare. Just be grateful you have a job. Do this dare for one month. After one month, I want to see each town report as to how much they just saved and how much it helped the budget. This is especially directed to the governor and everyone working for him.  I personally challenge him and for him to man up to his own requests. But just remember, I live on $200 a week and with that weekly amount comes my half of rent, food, bills and cigarettes.  Again, I triple dog dare every last one of you. And the first person to com plain about my dare is “yeller.” Hope Gomes Westerly

To some degree, I concur.  The Governor should give up his private driver and all those perks that make him feel important, yet do little to improve the governance of the State.  Governor Carcieri is used to being wealthy and I do not expect him to live like the rest of us anytime soon.  He’s a spoiled pig of a man and will continue to be one.  Has Rhode Island ever had a Governor that was not a rich spoiled pig? And I will not be surprised when the State and teacher’s unions give up pay increases for the next 3-5 years and start paying bigger chunks of their benefits.  They are, in fact, happy to have jobs and will ultimately do what it takes to keep them.  But there are a number of problems with this idiot letter.

1.  A Chariho teacher went to 5-6 years of college.  They are professionals.  And they would not be doing what they are doing for $10,000 a year, or even $20,000,  as Hope Gomes suggests they should.  I’m sorry if Hope Gomes thinks all our teachers should be flipping burgers.  Clearly his education let him down and his paycheck reflects it.  I’m not sure why he thinks teachers and DOT employees are all wealthy.  They are not, they are middle class Americans.  And many of them have likely seen some degree of poverty.  For a man that does not even pay property taxes, it doesn’t make a lot of sense for Hope Gomes to be crying about the state deficit.  It’s not coming out of his pocket.  As a matter of fact, they are the ones supporting him via the American welfare system, supplying him with an unemployment check.

2.  Adults don’t “triple-dog-dare” each other to do anything.  It’s just not how we behave. I’ll point to his probable  lack of quality education here again.

3.  Mr. Gomes pays for “rent, food, bills and cigarettes”.  I suggest he give up smoking.  He’s probably spending $25-$50 a week on cigarettes.  And if he has that much money for a luxury like cigarettes, he clearly has plenty of discretionary income.  I am assuming that he lost his job recently, as he commands state and municipal employees to be happy they have a job.  Is he spending $50 a week of unemployment checks on cigarettes?

Its much easier to blame others for our failures than to take personal responsibility for them.

Felkner, the Biggest Whiner of All

I do believe that Bill Felkner is the biggest whiner in Rhode Island.  While the Chariho Times is convinced he is trying to become the  emperor of Chariho, I disagree. I think he is just trying to force school vouchers through the system or disband Chariho.  I’m not sure which.  And he probably just wants school vouchers because he has his kids in private school (or wants them there) and can’t see why the district won’t cover his costs.  His motives are entirely selfish.  He’s just trying to save himself some cash at the expense of the rest of us, he’s a good little capitalist.

But that does not make him a whiner.  He is a whiner because he is suing RIC because they told him “no” and just like a 5-year-old, he’s crying over it.  Here is the story:  Felkner went to RIC to get a masters degree in social work.  In order to get the degree, he needed to do an internship in social work and then write a paper.  But Felkner thinks he is clever and instead of getting his hands dirty and working in Providence with the poor and disenfranchised, he decided to go do an internship working with Carcieri on welfare.  The faculty even let him do it, but he still had to do some actual social work.  Obviously, working for Carcieri is also getting dirty, but the filth is of a different and more insidious quality.  So he ignored his professors, did what he wanted to do and when he submitted his paper, he was denied the degree because he never did any social work.  He was given an old-fashioned smackdown for being a wiseass punk and now he is suing that his professors are liberals.  The liberal thing is a red herring to get the conservative nut-jobs on his side and pay for the lawsuit.  It has nothing to do with the fact that he’s not smart enough to follow the rules the rest of us follow.

This is what I got from college:  The professors are hired as the experts.  We may not like them and we may not agree with what they say.  But our job as students is to at least pacify them.  If they teach us better by being jerks, then we have learned something more than they expected.  But the rules go like this:  They tell us what to do, we do it.  Its just like being in the real world:  Boss tells us what to do, we do it.  We all live by these rules.  And if we don’t, there are consequences.  But not Bill “the cat food salesman” Felkner.  He makes his own rules and if you don’t like it, he’ll sue you.  And this is because he is really just a big whiner.   I thought Cordone was an embarrassment.  Now I wish we had him back, Felkner is way worse than Cordone.  At least Cordone took the punches without whining that no one would let him have his way.

I predict that he will lose his lawsuit against RIC.  It is a foolish waste of time and makes a fool out of everyone it touches, himself included.  Once again, it is no surprise his is “self-employed”.  I have a feeling he’s probably rubbed every boss he ever had the wrong way.

The article is here (Projo article) and the follow quote sums it all up:

RIC argues that Felkner equates his right to free speech with “a claim to be able to create his own curriculum, something which is not constitutionally guaranteed.”

Which means that in Felkner’s world, he’s right, you’re wrong and he’s going to make you pay for disagreeing with him.  On second thought, maybe he does want to be the emperor of Chariho.  it’s kind of ironic that when the School Board makes up it’s own rules to boot him out, it is not OK.  When he makes up his own rules to get a degree, it is OK.  Perhaps hypocrisy is another trait would could add to his resume of talents?

PS:  This is also funny:

In spring 2005, Felkner posted a transcript of a conversation he had recorded between himself and Prof. Roberta Pearlmutter — without her knowledge.

Wait, isn’t that illegal wiretapping?  Maybe someone should call the Hopkinton PD and check it out!?!  I’d say Prof. Pealmutter has a rock solid case against The Great Whiner.  He even admitted doing it.

A little math goes a long way. Or not.

I was perusing the Westerly Sun this afternoon and I came to an AP article entitled, “Survey Finds Vast Oil Reserves”.  I was intrigued.  I am quite well aware that most of the planet’s oil is already on tap and half of what we started out with is already gone.  So the word “vast” really grabbed my attention.

The article states that there are 90 million barrels of oil under the arctic ocean.  That’s great!  The US current uses 20 million barrels a day.  That’s an extra 4.5 days of oil use before civilization comes crashing in upon itself! Awesome!  Pass the Cheetos!

I can only assume the author meant 90 billion barrels, which amounts to 4500 more days of modern living.  Cool.  Just what we need to really cook the planet.