BOF Input – Poll the Residents about the Revised Budget
Subject: BOF Input – Poll the Residents about the Revised Budget
Dear BOF Members: Please forward on to Cathi Gaudinski and other BOF members - I don’t have their e-mail address.
I read on Bob Clarke’s blog that during the special BOF meeting on Monday 5/11 the BOF was reading and categorizing the comments that residents wrote on their paper ballots. However, many of us didn’t realize we had that additional opportunity of expressing our budget views. To add clarity to the discussion, is the BOF interested in creating an informal not binding poll that the residents could complete on the town website and/or via e-mail? This could provide additional guidance as you work on the best way to create a budget that will pass. Not all interested residents can attend the multiple meetings that are held.
As you know, there are a myriad of reasons why residents voted YES and just as many reasons for residents who voted NO. Many differing viewpoints make up each YES and NO vote cast. The noise and energy generated by such a large voter turn out may have mitigated some of the comments and show of hands that were made as various questions were asked. We thought that the BOS was going to conduct a more formal poll.
Thank you for your consideration.
Jane Boston
It was a shame that the First Selectman chose to refrain from handing out the exit polls that he had mentioned earlier in the evening. Why he did so is a mystery to me but it was a missed opportunity which would have provided valuable input for the BOF.
This evening the Board of Finance voted to provide the Board of Education with $20,000 more. This was done by taking funds from the town’s reserve account and reducing that account from 7.5% to 7.4% of the annual budget. The reserves are maintained to keep a good bond rating which in turn impacts the interest rates we pay on debt. It appears to me that the public was manipulated by Bill Black in order to get additional funds for the BOE. On Monday looks like Bill withheld the exit poll because he did not want to get results that would have been non-supportive of providing more funds to the BOE. Bill was fully prepared to hand out the survey had the crowd been overwhelmingly in support to more funds, but when he saw that the crowd was in favor of a tax reduction he decided to hold off on distributing the survey. If you don’y want to hear the answer you don’t ask the question. That is being manipulative and disrespecting those who came to the Town Meeting. It is dismissing the opinions of those voters who were not in agreement with Bill Black’s agenda.
@Ken Hjulstrom
Hopefully, Ken, people will be snappy enough to see that Mr. Black was following his own agenda. Anyone who was at the meeting and has read the budget article in the 5/15 issue of the Rivereast will plainly see Mr. Black stating that the budget was voted down because of the BOE reduction. That’s a pretty big slap in the face of the vocal majority, and their comments written on the ballots stating that the budget’s taxes were too high.
And just two days after the May 11th vote Bill Black attended the bOF meeting and submitted a letter to the BOF from himself and Joe Labella asking for more funds for the BOE. Selectman Riva Clark was excluded from that input since she is the Republican minority member and they did not call a legal meeting to get her input. Outside of a legally posted meeting Bill and Joe cannot communicate with Riva since doing so would be considered a quorum and violation of FOI laws. Such is the situation when you have a three member BOS. The minority member is left out in the cold.