Sunday, March 30, 2003
edit your blog:
Bob Sunday, March 30, 2003
Tomahawk:
Bob Sunday, March 30, 2003
David Poe
Bob Sunday, March 30, 2003
Human Shield
Bob Sunday, March 30, 2003
womans work
Bob Sunday, March 30, 2003
Dixie Chicks
Bob Sunday, March 30, 2003
David Barry
Bob Sunday, March 30, 2003
Monday, March 24, 2003
war speech
Bob Monday, March 24, 2003
Saturday, March 22, 2003
third wave
Bob Saturday, March 22, 2003
Thursday, March 20, 2003
lecarre
Bob Thursday, March 20, 2003
Tuesday, March 18, 2003
I am awake at three in the morning, ill, and sick of writing and thinking about the politics of school.
Instead, I am thinking of the post from last week that detailed the Builder?s Association meeting at the J.C. House. Apparently they laughed the Westmoor out of the room and the various BOS candidates followed the crowd. Now, the BA are a loud, boisterous, raucous group. Building is a high profile, lucrative business in the winter and, as such, they seem to have a lot of coffee shop influence. They certainly have a lot of sandwich shop influence.
But I don?t think they control a lot of votes. At town meeting or at the elections, I don?t know how many of them actually show up or pull the levers. The last vote I can remember the BA having a serious effect on was for the building cap. The BA has a lot of money and bravado, but I don?t think they get out the vote.
On the other hand, the realtors get out the vote. While the business of Nantucket may seem to be building, I believe it is truly in real estate. I think most Nantucketers, when they think with their wallets, think with houses and land in mind. They are concerned about the resale value of their house, the rental prospects of their property, and the prospects of buying more property. When we think money out here, we think land. And the realtors think long term while the builders are more worried about next month.
So, Finn and all the other Westmoor supporters, gird your loins and walk into a Realtors Association meeting. Get your best arguments out and the four color brochures and some serious forward looking ideas and sell them to the realtors. Convince them why this purchase will make property more valuable on Nantucket all around. Explain why it is a good deal for us. Walk them through the property (and bring Geno and his camera)
You probably won?t win. They won?t carry you out on their shoulders and sing huzzahs on the street. At best, you will win some new converts and some long term money thinking out of them. Hopefully, if the case is good enough, you will get them thinking and de-fang them. Their opposition will kill, but their neutrality may let the project live. Their support (unlikely) will carry the day.
But the arguments that might work for some of the realtors will work for most of the rest of the voters of the town. Employee housing, sheep farms, junior proms, central town square all sound good, but almost every voter at town meeting will be thinking with their wallets. And, on Nantucket, our wallets have shingles.
Next, visit the Saltmarsh Center and anywhere where the retired folks go. Use the same arguments on them as you use on the realtors, but make sure you have someone who can look back to the start of the land bank, missing the Wannacomet land, or the Miacomet Racetrack. Have cookies and listen. A lot. Be honest and ask for support. Use the past and the tradition of preservation.
From a look at those Census numbers, the island is skewed older. And from a quick view of voters at town meeting and during the elections, they voters are much older. The BA may not vote, but the Saltmarsh Center does. Work for those votes. Westmoor can win with support from older Nantucketers.
One last note. In the talk against Westmoor, I am surprised at the level of anger. I expected to read and hear comments more along the lines of ?it would be nice, but it costs too much?? Instead, I am hearing ?%$#@ No.? from certain quarters. Ask yourselves why these people are that angry. You won?t convince the ?%$#@ No.?crowd to support it, but if you can get them not to intimidate the fence-sitters, you may have a deal.
I think the anger comes from the fear that the town may actually go for the Westmoor. I think they, and others, see it as a close thing. It may not be in reality, but many people see it as a possibility.
As for the BOS candidates, ask them about their vision of the island for the next ten years. What overrides or cuts would they support? (Because we are going to have to have them.) Saying No is not enough. When do you say Yes?
P.S. I hope tonight?s SC meeting will be televised. If it is anything like the Budget Sub-committee meeting I walked past, it will be a doozy. Fellas, fingerpointing and name calling (?racist??) doesn?t help the cause right now. Get together and save the 7% increase. Now. The 2003-4 Budget is over and it isn?t in your hands anymore. You are now arguing about the 2004-5 budget. Really.
It?s time for someone to be a statesman.
Bob Tuesday, March 18, 2003
50 cent
Bob Tuesday, March 18, 2003
Monday, March 17, 2003
Blood:
Bob Monday, March 17, 2003
Friday, March 14, 2003
The Roof is on fire.
We are in a world of pain.
Let me get this straight. After a long series of meeting of the Budget Advisory Sub-Committee, several months of debate at the School Committee level over process, messages from the Fincom so subtle they found the front page of the paper, the schools bring the same numbers back to the Fincom and they reject it. So the only way we are going to get that 1.2 million will be to go to the floor of town meeting and fight for it.
And what a fight it will be. The CCSC will be there, pointing out the mystery that is the school budget. Phil Bartlett and the Fincom will line up against it. The Selectmen and Libby will line up against it. All of the usual Yahoos will oppose it. Starting tomorrow, a horde of annoyed and angry people will troop down to the Atheneum to check out the numbers. So the hordes will be well armed with numbers. Opposing them will be Tim Lepore, Robin Rowland, and lame duck Kim Horyn.
While the majority of three fight the Yahoos who will want to know why we keep the lights on during the day and why the elementary school isn?t fixed yet, the voting public will be sitting and listening.
But they will have been primed and pumped by a bruising school committee race, a Selectman?s race where the budget is already an issue and the ever contentious School Committee regular meetings-which will include the Superintendent?s evaluations. All of those food fights will be firing out ways to save money, not things to spend money on. I haven?t read any campaign ads screaming for increased money for textbooks or more sports at the middle school.
Even more importantly, money is tight. Real estate has slowed down, building is down, stock market is down, summer rentals are down (I?m guessing) and we will either be at war or have just finished one and will be busy ?rebuilding.?
So the voters will have been buttonholed by candidates, watched debates on TV and read six weeks worth of negative school news in ?The fish wrap? as my personal physician likes to say. And remember who my voter is: An older couple on Fairgrounds with an empty apartment and remarkable bills.
Into this mess will stand the oratorical skills of our only board licensed surgeon, arguing for another override. What will he say?
It better not be ?85% of our taxes are paid by summer people.? That argument is deader than nub scallops. All of those voters are looking, immediately, at the bills they have to pay. The fact that people worth 100 times more than they do will pay 6x as much in property taxes won?t wash. They don?t want to give up the extra $35, especially if it is to a mystery.
It also better not be ?Give us the override or we will cancel athletics and fill the pool with sand.? After last year, the voters just don?t trust the threats. And from what is happening on the rest of the Cape, they might be willing to push that. Anyone for a $200 bus ride and a $1300 full day kindergarten? Those threats only work if people know that it will happen. They need to believe. If the budget had been transparent all the way through (i.e. ?The third grade spends $400 in colored pencils?), then people could believe the threat. We could challenge them to cut the money themselves. But we have no transparency and therefore no trust that the cuts will be genuine.
And it better not be ?Let?s get the best for our kids.? Because we will hear all about the Community School and the $10,737 we spend per student now and Buildings and Grounds and all of the rest of it.
Tim would be on a Fool?s Errand. He would invite a huge personal rebuke that would make the cemetery road fiasco look mild. Whatever credibility he has with the town would crash. Let?s not forget the Christine pulled a few more voters than Tim did in the last election.
So, at the schools, we better have a Plan B and a Plan C.
Plan B would be to accept that we surrendered all budget making ability this year and gave it to Libby and Phil Bartlett. The School Committee botched the job the state gave it. It?s done. So, put out the 17.4 million dollar budget tomorrow, make some ?quiet? 1.2 million cuts and don?t do anything on Town Meeting floor. If anything, send the SC including the two new members, to put their shoulders to the wheel to get the other override passed. That is no slam dunk.
Plan C would be to figure out that the Town override isn?t going to fly, either. Then, we would need to make some very, very, very serious cuts around the place. I think Westmoor might have a better chance than the school or the town might get on the override.
It?s not use pointing fingers at Christine and David here. The budget has passed beyond them. It?s no use whining about the paper or the SC candidates. All of the stars are lined up against the schools right now. We are in a world of hurt and if jobs are to survive this spring, the Schools better come up with a real good plan.
And it can?t be Plan A. The doctor can?t save it.
B
P.S. I think the SC is in a legal morass anyway. If the budget needs to be reviewed and passed in the next few days, but we won?t know what the final numbers are going to be until April, aren?t we breaking the law? Christine, help me here.
Bob Friday, March 14, 2003
Bush nightmare
Bob Friday, March 14, 2003
HEdges on NOW:
Bob Friday, March 14, 2003
Thursday, March 13, 2003
Hydrogen
Bob Thursday, March 13, 2003
Wednesday, March 12, 2003
Orchid Fever
Bob Wednesday, March 12, 2003
Saturday, March 08, 2003
Games for kids
Bob Saturday, March 08, 2003
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