Woodstock CT Café

See ‘Interested’s’ comment after the article “The Defeat of Reason…” and other like comments that he (almost certainly not a she) has left.

“Have you read any books on educational theory?”

‘Interested’ I’d like to answer your question and ask you a few in return. You ask why parents of school children did not support the Amendment. I’m sure parents did support the amendment- the question really is, why does it appear as if some parents voted “no” at the polls? Part of the answer to that question is that parents have limited information. The only newspaper in town is littered with inaccuracies. Both sides of an issue are never explored in any depth. Parents can’t get accurate Minutes to town meetings because they are not posted on web sites or easily obtainable. All the parents I know work for a living and can’t attend meetings that run to midnight. They hear (or hear about) uninformed ranting citizens at Town Meetings who have a questionable level of understanding of what Prop 46 actually says. This is about communication; this is not about parents sharing your opinions and questioning accountability. Read the rest of this entry »

“…lets elimininate (some) costs…”

Here’s an opportunity for all of us to unite on one cause – shouters and non-shouters, CPS’ers and non-CPS’ers alike. There is one significant cost of the Town of Woodstock that we can do away with without any loss in services. We need to put together one more petition – not one of those puny 25-signature petitions, but a 200-plus (why not 400-plus) signature petition. I would sign my name at the top. This petition is intended to cut as much as $200,000 from the town budget thereby reducing the mil rate and lowering the tax burden of the tax-paying citizens of Woodstock.

I propose that we circulate a petition to convert the three Selectman positions to non-salaried Board positions just like the positions on the Board of Education and Finance. When you look at the hefty work of the Board of Education with a budget three times that of the Town operation budget, one has to wonder why our Selectman positions are salaried and the BOE positions are not. Furthermore, during the reign of our last First Selectman, her salary was raised 40% but I never heard anything about this until it was a done deal. It seems to me that there should have been some public discussion of these significant increases in compensation of all three Selectmen. This dialogue might have elicited some interesting discussion about what these people actually do. It also seems to me that all we really need is a Town Clerk, a Treasurer preferably with strong financial expertise, a Town Assessor, and the remaining miscellaneous positions that we have to manage the day-to-day business of the Town.

I say lets eliminate these costs – the Selectman salaries, their fringe benefits, and the position of Executive Administrative Assistant, their office supplies, and the cost of the useless Town web site that is an embarrassment to all and save the taxpayers as much as $200,000. By doing this we may also avoid expensive pet projects like reduction of taxes for the elderly (yikes, that’s me!), the Town cop, the Town planner, bird feeders, and bird feeder supplies, etc. Who knows… we may even save more than $200,000. Read the rest of this entry »