Woodstock CT Café

Possibly the more likely senario in Tuesday’s election: Only one First Selectman candidate will be elected and the two second Selectman candidates will both be elected because they both have more votes than either of the two losing First Selectman candidates. (see ‘Inquiring Mind’s’ question and ‘The Aussie’s’ comment below. Admin.

G’day Folks,

Back home in the outback of the down under (actually the up top by my way of thinking) in my home town of Alice Springs we had somethin put together by the Board of Elections that determined the town electorate IQ based on candidates that won elections in every town in our territory. The idea behind this was to see what towns were smart in terms of their evaluation of candidates and what towns were not so smart. The Board of Elections commission rated candidates for their various offices based upon their background and expertise relevant to the elective office that they were seeking. After the election was over the commission would analyze the results of the election to determine which towns were acting smart and which were less intelligent in the way they chose candidates. The electorate IQ of various towns usually ranged from genius (150 or better) like Erldunda south of us down to moronic (75 or less) like the town of Barrow Creek (where the crows fly backwards) north of us. A town like Darien in Fairfield County would probably be in the genius range while Winsted might be closer to the moronic range – a place where a guy like Wetzel would thrive since he could call everyone a moron.

This electorate IQ was calculated by candidates’ ratings based upon qualifications and who was elected. Candidates were rated 0, 3, 6, 9, and 12 with zero being based on no qualifications or negative factors up to 12 for those candidates with seemingly excellent qualifications for the job. With these town electorate IQ’s political parties could assess how to approach and campaign in a town based upon their electorate IQ. Read the rest of this entry »

Kevin,

I think you have shown an excellent understanding of the issues. You certainly have analyzed the situation realistically. It appears that you have done your homework. You probably understand that suggesting any limitation on Woodstock Academy’s freedom to self-determine its tuition cost, risks popular disfavor. There is little likelihood that the BOE and WA will reach agreement on a fair percentage cap as you suggest and many would prefer that WA continue to have a blank check. There is absolutely no interest in the other sending towns to imposing a cap and those towns, as well as the Trustees, as their leadership has stated, will not become involved in Woodstock’s Prop 46 debate or think one minute of transferring the pain (as Glenn Converse has put it) onto the Academy.

I must disagree with some of Cafe Cronies statements. A BOE member must be willing to make uncomfortable and many times unpopular decisions. Read the rest of this entry »

The direction for the town’s land use management supported by the Democratic Planning and Zoning candidates is well-articulated in the Woodstock Voter piece the town is receiving today and tomorrow. Following are my observations of the problem and the Republican position from the Middle School Debate and their published advertisements.

The town has a zoning ordinance that is so poorly written it is broadly unenforceable, a problem the whole WPZC has been aware of for years based on chronic complaints from three successive zoning enforcement officers. If we do not have an enforceable zoning code, we effectively do not have zoning in our town. And that is exactly what many Republicans on or running for the Planning Commission want – no zoning. This is especially true of Fred Rich, who in the two years I served with him on PZC had a typical response – “You can’t tell someone what they can do with their land�.

As one of many examples, we have one case where someone is storing large commercial trash containers in his yard in a residential neighborhood under a “home occupationâ€? – and there is nothing we can do about it with the current regulations. In another, we approved a hot dog stand with a port-a-pottie that was opened on someone’s front lawn. While I registered a symbolic “Noâ€? vote, we could not legally deny this application under the current regulations. There are many, many more examples including used car lots, biotech buildings, major construction equipment storage, and on and on. The commercial pressure is definitely on, and we have no effective means to deal with it. Read the rest of this entry »