Woodstock CT Café

This request has been assigned Case #2007-471 by the CT FOI Commission

Preston D. Shultz
243 New Sweden Road
Woodstock, CT 06281
Phone (deleted) day time

August 29, 2007

Freedom of Information Commission
18-20 Trinity Street
Hartford, CT. 06106

Gentlemen:

Over the past year the Woodstock Board of Education has been on a campaign for more funding for education blaming the lack of money on a local ordinance (Prop 46), and on 9th through 12th grade which is contracted to an independent school called the Woodstock Academy. Prop 46 is a local ordinance which is a spending limitation that limits the growth in the budget of the Town of Woodstock. This ordinance has withstood multiple attempts of repeal and amendment through referenda. Woodstock Academy is an independent school that is contracted (there has been no contract in place since 2004) by the Woodstock Board of Education to educate our 9th through 12th graders.

What has come to be called the ‘Breen Proposal’ was presented to the State of Connecticut Legislative Education Committee, which was to be looked at in committee to become law, by a local citizen named Joe Breen. Joe Breen turns out to be more than just a private citizen, as he is the Chairman of the Woodstock Democratic Town Committee. Read the rest of this entry »

Couldn’t stay for the whole meeting, left at nine. Trish Lustila, Mary Jane Fulco, Christine Carter and Paul Gamache gave a presentation about the Gifted and Talented and SPICE programs. Interesting info not least of which is that the state requires districts to identify students that are gifted and talented, but the courts have decided (some time ago) that programs for those students are not required. (Editorial Sidebar: What is the purpose of identifying students whose needs are not being met by the regular curriculum/environment without providing some remediation to that condition.) I was impressed by the number of additional opportunities our students have for accessing special interest stimulation in the extra curricular groups available in addition to the G&T/SPICE programs.

The Board voted Lindsay Paul as Chairman, Bill Loftus as Vice Chairman and Carol Andrzeicik as Secretary. Additionally, it was decided to wait until the December 13th meeting to populate the committees.

See the Norwich Bulletin article by Dustin Raccioppi for discussion of another FOI complaint by Preston Shultz.

I’d be interested in what happened after I left if anyone has any input.

Also see Kevin Ford’s commentary (the link to Kevin’s site is on the lower right under “LINKs”) on the November 26th introductory meeting where the BOE was briefed on legal issues, e.g. “One of the first items I found of interest was that the attorney indicated that we were primarily agents of the state. This was different than my understanding that it was more of a 50/50 relationship between state and municipal responsibility…”

Bad Boy said something that triggered my inquisitiveness about Woodstock’s education costs. He compared the cost of fire protection (about $50 per year per person or $130 per year per residence) to the cost of educating our kids (about $5000/per year per kid). The actual cost of educating our 1500 kids is about $10,000 per year per kid if you divide 1500 kids into $15 million.

There is no question in my mind that Woodstock has top-notch fire protection with our three Fire Houses and I believe we ought to continue to fund this important town service in the same manner we have as long as we are allowed to scrutinize and question the budget democratically. Comparing the cost of our fire protection service to our kids’ education is problematic however.

That it costs roughly $10,000 per year to educate one child in Woodstock staggers many because $10,000 seems like a lot of money. However if you break this down to a per diem cost, the cost is about $55 per day per student if there are 180 school days. Then if you break this cost down by hour for 8 hours (7am to 3pm, bus pick up and return) the cost per child is $7 per hour. The vast majority of the employed in Woodstock make a wage of $10-$50 per hour. Read the rest of this entry »

The spending of the Fire Department is open to review. The reserve fund is for replacement of EMERGENCY equipment. This equipment can’t wait to be approved in a referendum.

Some facts:

With a population of 8,000, the fire departments’ charge per person is $49.49 per year, or if you want to look at the roughly 3100 households, $129.77 per home per year for Fire/Medical/Emergency Service available 24/7/365.

As I mentioned in my first post, the Bungay Fire Brigade members alone donate 7,000 hours for free. What would that cost the town if we were paid like the teachers?

50% of the Education budget goes to salaries and benefits ($7,500,000) as the departments website states. They report a pupil/teacher ratio of 15/1, do the math. Guess what the Fire Department members get?

There are roughly 1,500 students in Woodstock. Each child costs just over $5,000 to educate ($7,500,000 divided by 1500). That’s reasonable.

Finally, I spent two days looking for the BOE budget. It’s not part of the town budget and it’s not online in any of the websites. How’s that for transparency?

Fire Department members are not knuckle dragging, non-voting, non-particpating gorillas that play with “toys”. We are caring, state certified, semi-professionals that have trained for hours to provide every resident with the best protection in any emergency.

The one thing we don’t do is get bogged down in the incessant political yammering, we have important work to do.

Last night the Open Space Land Aquisition Committee had a representative from the Connecticut Farm Bureau Association speak on PA-490. The following sheet was provided to the audience:

Public Act 490 - The Basics

Q: What is Public Act 490 and Use Value Assessment?

A: PA 490 is Connecticut’s law that allows your farm, forest, or open space land to be assessed at its use value rather than its fair market or highest and best use value for the purposes of local property taxation. Without use value assessment, most landowners would have to sell the land because they would not be able to afford the property taxes in the farm, forest, or open space land.

Q: When did PA-490 begin, and is it unique to Connecticut?

A: PA 490 was passed by the Ct. legislature in 1963. Every state in the nation has a Use Value Assessment law for its farm, forest, or open space land. Each state has different rules in regards to its particular Use Value Assessment law.

Q: How much property taxes can I save with PA-490?

A: Each situation is different: however the savings can be significant. It must be noted that PA 490 allows farmers to continue to farm and other landowners to continue to own forrest and open space without being forced to sell it in order to pay for local prooperty taxes. Read the rest of this entry »

The Norwich Bulletin today expressed their view about the use of the Cafe by the Board of Education in an Opinion Article.

“The Woodstock Board of Education is hoping to improve communications between itself and the citizens of Woodstock, including posting school news on Internet sites such as the Woodstock Cafe. Some in town, including First Selectwoman Margaret Wholean, are objecting to the idea of utilizing that particular Web site.

Although we understand the concern with this particular Web site, we believe the objections are an overreaction aimed more at those who run the site than any real concern about the intent of what school officials are trying to do.

The Woodstock Cafe is a blog site run by former Board of Education candidate John Leavitt that became quite controversial during the recent municipal elections. Like most blog sites, the opinions and the comments posted are not always those that agree with official or the majority’s point of view, and at times, those opposing points of view are not always presented in what some might consider a constructive manner. Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome Firemen. Tell us more! Admin

An answer to the question “why all the fire equipment?’

Woodstock has no fire hydrants, so the Fire department must bring the water to the fire.

Bungay Fire Brigade has two engine-tankers ET277 & ET377, both have 1,000 gallons of water onboard. There is one engine, E177. Engine 177 drives to the nearest water supply, sets up to fill the tankers as they put out the fire. As each tanker’s water supply is used, it must go back to the engine and be refilled. Two tankers keep water on the fire and staff at the scene. In addition to those three vehicles, there is one rescue truck, currently being replaced from the vehicle aquisition fund and a service vehicle.

I’d suggest you check out the various department websites like Bungay.com to see what equipment the departments have.

Volunteers at Bungay alone have given nearly 7,000 hours in volunteer hours. Between the 45 members of Bungay alone we’ve each given, on average, nearly 156 hours to the people of Woodstock, that’s nearly four 40 hour weeks from each member last year.

You won’t complain about us after you need us. Read the rest of this entry »

asktheboard@woodstockschools.net is apparently the correct email address.

Dear Board of Education,

I am writing to you in response to comments appearing in the November 23, 2007 edition of the Woodstock Villager. The article quoted Ms. Wholean as stating that she would send a letter to the WBOE chairman Lindsey Paul, on behalf of the selectmen, expressing her objection to the WBOE submitting its column, A Spotlight On Woodstock Education, to the Woodstockctcafe.com website. Wholean cited that the Cafe website is a gossip blog that spreads lies and objected to the fact that the BOE referrred to this website as a legitimate news source for parents. While I appreciate Ms. Wholean’s opinion, I am questioning her motivation for objecting to the post of your non-biased column to the Cafe website.

As a voting Republican and supporter of individual rights to choose, I am appalled at Ms. Wholean’s statements. The legitimacy of the Cafe and the decision to view it as such should be left to the discretion of the individual reader and not to a political demagogue. Read the rest of this entry »

Below is a reprint of an article by reporter Dustin Racioppi of the Norwich Bulletin published Sunday Morning November 25th. The reason we are publishing this at the Café is because of it’s pertinence to Woodstock’s political and intellectual environment.

There’s a small group of people in Woodstock who will try to spread mis-information about the Café because our articles and comments present alternative points of view. We believe that this is why some call the Café “controversial.” It would be a sad statement for the media outlets in our area if residents of Woodstock had no venue to speak openly about their beliefs and opinions. With the passing of the election season, I think we have also seen this intent from the Villager, as well, with less of an inclination to present only one side.

The difference, of course, is that if someone presents a one-sided viewpoint at the Café, others can quickly respond accordingly. It has been said by this small group of Café antagonists that the Café is a Democratic website. This is only true if we use a small “d” as in democratic. We think that there is plenty of evidence that the Café has contributors from all parties and even others outside the Quiet Corner who see the Café as a resource for expression of ideas and opinions. There has never been an intent to slant opinions to one side. If there has been a slant, then this has happened only because of the people who have chosen to speak. If the BOE sends news releases to the Café, then we will publish them. If the BOE does not, then we may choose to publish them anyway. If the Academy chooses to send news releases to the Café we would publish them, and when they have not we have sometimes published them anyway.

The Café has come alive over the last 2 years and 2 months and is accelerating with already as many as 644 articles and >6150 comments. Readership is also on the rise. As always, we wonder what will come up next? Admin

“Woodstock school board stirs controversy with plan to use blog
Nov 25, 2007 @ 3:43 AM
By DUSTIN RACIOPPI
Norwich Bulletin
Woodstock, Conn.

The Woodstock board of education admits to not being sufficiently in touch with the community. It’s something they’d like to fix.

In a recent letter to parents and guardians, the board of education announced what they are calling the Community Communications and Relations Committee in order to better their lack of dialogue.

One of the first initiatives of the committee is to launch the “WPS Cornerâ€? in local media—The Reminder News, The Woodstock Villager and Woodstock Cafe, a Web site run by former board of education candidate John Leavitt— to highlight student accomplishments and feature news of interest in the schools. There will also be an “Ask the BOEâ€? section. While residents do feel opening lines of communication is a positive step, some have concerns about posting on Woodstock Cafe. Read the rest of this entry »

(From part of a comment under Randall’s Arendt’s article. Admin)

Different people buying land and building their homes will have different thoughts and opinions about how much land they want for their home site. No one would expect subdivision and zoning regulations to be infelxible or written in stone. Rather, there are choices that can be made within a given set of regulations. Certainly, some builders will prefer maximizing the allowed buildable house lots and some people will like buying homes without much buildable acreage. But, in this case, there is more land that will abut the buildable housing lots because of conservation land, so the lots will seem bigger as a result. However, they may be some builders that will want to go with less than the maximum allowed buildable lots so as to create larger lot sizes (as long as the prescribed amount of conservation land is kept in the whole development) and there will be some people who would want lot sizes of a certain size. I would think that regulations could be flexible enough to see what works and what doesn’t work as far as an overall consistent plan of subdivision and zoning regulations, keeping in mind that one type of development may work in one part of town (such as cluster development) and another type of development may work in another part of town (such as a less-clustered type of development). I have seen variations on these themes when one reviews things done in other communities around the country. A third option is for a builder to propose a subdivision plan that sets aside more than 50% conservation land, knowing in advance that there will be a lower number of allowed building lots, if the selling point and the prospective market of buyers wants such developments.

I would be interested in Mr. Arendt’s experiences and thoughts. Read the rest of this entry »