From John
Woodstock budget referendum passed by a 3 to 1 vote. The 2013-14 budget is $21.2 million budget.
The combined town and school spending passed 279-93, with 7.4 percent of the town’s 5,006 registered voters coming out. The budget represents a 0.5 mill increase to the tax rate.
The following votes come from the Cafe archives (a historical record fro October 2005 to the present):
2012
Yes votes = 333
No votes = 155
approx. 9.8% voter turnout
2011
YES votes = 352
NO votes = 286
12.6% voter turnout
2010
As predicted in the article below “Those days are over in Woodstock…” meaning the tumultuous years before 2010.
YES = 342
NO = 152
9.8% voter turnout
2009
YES – 675 (85%)
NO – 123 (15%)
2008
Voting on June 24th, 2008:
Ballots Cast Voting YES …680
Ballots Cast Voting NO …646
A 27.6% TURNOUT
Voting on June 3rd, 2008:
Ballots Cast Voting YES … 530
Ballots Cast Voting NO … 864
a 29% turnout
2007
YES … 693
Vulgarians … 560
2006
YES … 920
NO … 200
What was happening then:
“The Ahmadinejads of Woodstock” published June 21, 2009
From John
What Mr. Powers, Mr. Rosendahl, and Mr. Shultz lacked for the June 9th referendum (when the populous rose up and defeated their attempt to recall the Board of Education) was Ahmadinejad’s approach. Simply deny the ballots and declare victory by a 2/3rds margin. Those days are over in Woodstock just like they are in Iran. Never again will things be the same in Woodstock.
Why do I say this? The Democratic Town Committee played their hand and lost. I don’t mean the Woodstock Democrats lost (that includes me), it was the DTC that lost. DTC Chairman, James Kaeding, played his hand with a last minute Letter to the Editor in the Villager advocating repeal of the Board of Education while Mr. Powers, the instigator of the petition, and Ms. Wholean (DTC Secretary) soon to be DTC candidate for First Selectman signed the petition together, possibly while holding hands.

Mr. Kaeding decided not to sign the petition because it looked bad as he is Chairman of the DTC. How disingenuous.
The contrast between Allan Walker and Ms. Wholean is remarkable. For example, Mr. Walker turned back a raise this year while Ms. Wholean awarded herself a 9% raise in her final last 7 months as First Selectman. She went on to lie on WINY saying that the purpose of this raise was to guarantee that ‘there would be enough money in the budget to support hiring of a Town Manager’ (gag me with a spoon
). Ms. Wholean handed over FOI information that she requested from the BOE, while she was First Selectman, to CPS litigator, Mr. Shultz, so that he could pursue his FOI litigation at the FOIA Commission on behalf of the Citizens for Prudent Spending, forcing the BOE to defend themselves incuring more lawyer costs.
On the other hand, Mr. Walker has been careful to show no bias as First Selectman to any party although he is a Republican. This is perhaps the exemplary role that a First Selectman should play. He has stabilized Town management while Ms. Wholean commanded in her last six months in office that no communications would be sent from the Town Hall without her approval (Yuk!).
Ms. Wholean’s smoking gun handed to Mr. Shultz turned out to be loaded with hydrogen sulfide (e.g. rotten eggs). The silly nature of this smoking gun and the Wholean/Shultz collaboration was revealed at the FOIA commission hearing last June 5th in Hartford, so it’s a matter of public record (see the article on this hearing published at the Cafe on June 6th 2008 ).
We’ve talked about CPS a lot at the Café and Joe Klusek has complained about our characterization of CPS as a proponent of the latest petition from Misters Powers, Shultz, and Rosendahl. I think Joe is correct to complain about the correctness of this association because it has become clear that Powers and Shultz have hijacked the CPS name in pursuit of their own personal agenda – their relentless attacks on the school system and the BOE for personal gain (readers need to try and figure this out yourselves). For example, Powers claimed that he was acting on behalf of the CPS organization in the weeks leading up to the June 9th referendum and all of Shultz FOIA complaints have been on behalf of … you guessed it, Citizens for Prudent Spending. No wonder Café’ers are confused about CPS. The CPS organization has allowed Powers and Shultz to get away with this.
In Powers case the petition was his last ditch effort to … (well, if you can’t figure this out, giving you the answer is a waist of time).







