Woodstock CT Café

“We need a Woodstock Ethics Ordinance!”

Please copy these two petitions into a WORD document, sign them, collect signatures, if possible, and then either fax them to 508-303-0579 (fax), or email them to krapoport@eecnet.com, or, best yet, snail mail them to Ken’s home address in Woodstock -Ken Rapoport, PO Box 625, Woodstock, CT 06281.

PETITION
February 2006

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Name Address Phone Signature

To answer Debunker’s comment (”Another Perspective by Debunker…” and comments) - the town has grown significantly enough to allow impartial people to serve on boards- rather than expect people to “recuseâ€? themselves when conflict arises. Read the rest of this entry »

“Freedom of expression is something you have to take, not something that will be granted to you!”

Ahmad, this town’s most notorious blogger, sat in his cave-like office of his ramshackle house in a backwoods section of the town dotted with cow pies and rock walls, trying to log onto the widely popular Web site that he and his compatriots founded, www.WoodstockistanCTCafe.com.

The governing clique in this flyspeck of a Town, home to the Woodstockistan Fair, recently renewed its effort to block opposition Web sites. So Ahmad, with plenty of time on his hands, had to spend about 10 minutes whipping through various computer servers around the world before finally pulling up his Web site.

It was Woodstockistan Day, a celebration of the founding of the Town, and some five miles away, the beautifully landscaped boulevards of Woodstockistan were packed with revelers enjoying bands and speeches by Town officials. Pictures of the ruling Selectmanni blanketed the city, which was also awash in the Town colors, blue and gold and, of course, our national red, white, and blue flags. Blue and gold lights were even wrapped around the oak and maple trees lining the main thoroughfares. But most of the hundreds of people reading at the Café or posting messages in the political section of WoodstockistanCTCafe mocked the idea of celebrating the Day when the ‘old guard’, ascended the throne to rule over their majority constituency - the CPS’ers, Swamp Yankees, and lazy electorate - a constituency known as the CPSSYLE.

“In Woodstockistan, glorifying the Board of Selectmanni (BOS) and the Board of Penny Pinchers (BOPP), that pays the Selectmanni off with slush funding, means glorifying the Town, and opposing the BOS, the BOPP and the CPSSYLE that props them up, means betraying the homeland and working for ‘alien’ interests … like education (god forbid),” wrote one online participant, noting that the formula is a sign of a decaying society. “Should we be loyal to the BOS, the BOPP, and their cadre - or to Woodstockistan and its future?” Read the rest of this entry »

“…secrecy can be accomplished … by making it difficult…for the citizens to gain access to the decision-making process”

Rapoport and Debunker appear to be on the opposite sides of the fence when it comes to openness of the civil proceedings of our Town government. Like many others in Town, I have often wondered how Town initiatives get started - like the initiative to find a new high school to replace Woodstock Academy – and the role of the First Selectman in pursuing new initiatives. Wouldn’t the pursuit of new initiatives begin with the First Selectman and the Board of Selectmen rather than in some Town committee? If a Town committee conceived of a new initiative, wouldn’t pursuit of this new initiative have to receive approval by the Board of Selectmen?

In this context, I have often wondered about the limits of authority of the Board of Selectman, and the role of the First Selectman as defined in the Woodstock bylaws. I have been curious about this because it’s my, perhaps naive, impression that many of the auxiliary Town Boards and Agencies function autonomously without oversight by the Board of Selectmen. Woodstock’s Web site sheds no light on this subject - nor any information on the roles of other paid staff, elected Board members, and committee appointees (see the comments section in “Another Perspective…” by Debunker for more on this subject). It seems to me that we ought to be continuously reminded as to what these roles and limitations are. Read the rest of this entry »

“Minor screw ups probably get blown way out of proportion when you have people running to the attorneys and the paper”

Having watched the Pulpit Rock Road situation rather closely, I am stunned by the apparent result that “he who yells the loudest must be correct.” There are so many things wrong or only partially right with the Villager’s coverage of the Pulpit Rock Road/Douglas Builders question that it is really hard to know where to begin. Let me try to establish some things that I believe to be true, both factually, and subjectively, based on my conversations with many of the principal parties (town officials, elected officials, board members, the Douglases, and Ken Rapoport):

1) There was no way for the Town to win this issue going in. If the Boards denied the application, Douglas was going to sue (as he did). If they approved the application, Rapoport was going to sue. He promised that. The Town will be defending their decision either way. They, I hope, tried to follow the rules and do things the right way. They haven’t really been pushed on this stuff before, the stakes and the scrutiny haven’t been this high before. Minor screw ups probably get blown way out of proportion when you have people running to the attorneys and the paper with every move of the boards. Read the rest of this entry »

“The pattern that Rapoport describes is the systematic exclusion of town citizenry… “

Ken Rapoport’s Letter to the Editor in the Woodstock Villager in the Jan. 13th (2006) issue mimics examples of questionable leadership described in previous WoodstockCtCafe articles. He points out the inadequacy of ‘consultants’ selected by our town government officials, …or is it the inadequacy of Town officials in managing these consultants? … or is it the manipulation of the Town and its citizenry through the use of ‘consultants’? The example Rapoport describes is the failure of Woodstock’s engineering consultants, “Design Professionals, Inc”, to uncover critical omissions in the application by Douglas Building to develop an 8-lot subdivision of 47-acres on Pulpit Rock Road. Read the rest of this entry »

“The biggest payoff of the new football program… will be in the mentoring”

“A Night on the Town” Sponsored by Woodstock Academy Project Graduation & Football Committees - Saturday, March 11, 2006, 7 PM - Wright’s Mill Farm in Canterbury, CT - Only 20 minutes from Woodstock - Tickets $30 - Available at Woodstock Academy Office - Town Clerks Office Or Call 860-974-2943, 860-928-3404 - Hilarious Comedy, Great Music & Sports Auction

See Addendum: From the Woodstock Academy Football Booster Committee at the bottom of this article.

To examine this subject I read academic literature - journal papers and theses - that I found in various electronic databases like Psyche Abstracts and the Dissertation Abstracts. Psyche Abstracts covered sociology journals like Sociology of Education, Sociological Perspectives, and Adolescence to name a few. I found literature reporting research attempts to address the issue of the impact of high school and college athletics on academic performance. For the most part these studies indicated that there is a positive relationship between sports and academic achievement, though other studies failed to find this positive impact.

In his Ph.D. thesis, Michael Allen at the University of Connecticut, Humanities and Social Sciences (1997), indicated that the success of athletic programs hinges on the role of coaches, teammates, and support personnel who promote academic involvement by athletes. His thesis also pointed out that one of the primary reasons for poor academic achievement of athletes is the “immersion in team subcultures that emphasized athletic achievement as opposed to academic achievement”. I tend to agree with Allen. Furthermore, I believe that high school (academic) performance and achievement should not JUST be measured by the grade point average - remember, Einstein failed Botany. Read the rest of this entry »

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“Is Margaret Wholean abdicating her role as First Selectman to Delpha Very? “

In the January 6th issue (2006) of the Woodstock Villager there is an article on page 6 about Woodstock receiving a small cities bloc(k) grant for “as much as $700,000″ to pay for renovation of the New Roxbury Village, a senior housing complex of 24 apartments on Butts Road in South Woodstock. It was a very, very positive article about the accomplishment of Delpha Very in securing this grant for the town. These grants are routinely available for towns that apply for them - so securing grants where available should be at the top of the list on the First Selectman’s job description or that of the First Selectman’s Executive Assistant. Read the rest of this entry »