Woodstock CT Café

“On-Line Schooling Grows…” see the New York Times

About 120 people showed up at the Inn at Woodstock Hill to attend the Board of Education’s Meet & Greet social gathering tonight (7-9 pm, Thursday night, January 31st). Luminaries included First Selectman, Allan Walker, Academy Headmaster Richard Foye, Lindsay and Jeff Paul, Steve Adams, Jeff Gordon, Gail Dickinson, Barbara Rich, Linda Bernardi, Sue McDowell, Peg Murphy, Avis Spalding, Suzanne Woodward, Andre Bessette, Liz Francis, Julie Anderson, Brenda Van Damme, John Rauh, Bill Sowka, Kevin Johnston, Sandra Fredrickson, Lindsay Puliafico, Sharon Mulvey, Cindy Kelly, Dennis and Marilyn Pilipaitis, Dave and Judith Hosmer, Scott Young, Ruth Ambrozaitis, all members of the Board of Education, Superintendent Francis Baran, WES Principal Viktor Toth, members of the Planning & Zoning Commission, members of the Board of Finance, MFATF committee members, teachers, parents, and, YES, many Cafe’ers including John and Becki Leavitt.

Entertainment was provided by the Middle School Jazz Band lead by music director and conductor, Tim Cassell. As one who played serious trumpet during junior high and high school, I can say that the jazz band was high quality and entertainment destined to be invited to perform at many future Meet & Greet social events.

“Work at home job resources for high school and college students.”

This 16-year old Woodstock high school student has created the website WorkInMyRoom.com to help other students make money for things like saving for tuition, purchase of a car, auto insurance, wardrobe, rent, expensive dates…things that I can attest to (as the father of a 19-year old) are very expensive.

Through this website some income producing options are writing, taking surveys, selling on EBay, artwork on T-shirts and coffee mugs (hmmm. How about “I was banned from the Cafe” T-Shirts or “You Moron” coffee mugs?), crafting, modeling, tutoring…

According to Laura’s website:

“For many high school and college students, the reality is there are fewer local jobs than there are people who need or want them. Even if you’re fortunate enough to find an open position, it may not afford you the flexibility you need to focus on your studies and maintain a meaningful social life. Further, it’s unlikely that the job will be very personally gratifying.”

“Durst plans to continue building on to the WorkInMyRoom.com resources as she expands her research for legitimate opportunities for students to make money from their rooms.”

Here is a link to her November 30th news release about this new option for students in her own words.

The Cafe will provide a link to Laura’s site as soon as we make repairs to our new site. We encourage all Cafe’ers to enlist WorkInMyRoom.com for your special needs.

Will We Have Strong Leadership, Good Judgement & Sound Jurisprudence?

According to Dustin Racioppi reporting for the Norwich Bulletin, Dave Richardson “recently told the Boards of Finance and Selectmen that the amount people were taxed has exceeded the constraints of Proposition 46, the town’s spending cap, by $1.3 million.” – that is, for the last 4 years. He blames this over-taxation on mis-calculations through mis-interpretation of Prop 46.

This article was interesting because those who wish to discard Prop 46 can see the response of these Boards to pressuring from the opposite end of the political spectrum. This pressuring is by the same group that complains about over-spending and waste by the K-8 Woodstock school system, while never questioning the cost of the Town’s largest contractor, Woodstock Academy.

Mike Alberts was represented in this article as saying that ‘since a passed budget reigns supreme, the rigidity of Proposition 46 comes into play.’ I’m not sure what this means (seems a little contradictory), but if I am interpretting this statement properly, he is saying that since the budget was approved by referendum, the referendum trumps Richardson’s interpretation of Prop 46, and any other interpretation. The notion that Prop 46 can be interpretted is one key point in the debate about Prop 46, and the second key point is that the taxpayers have always had the power to vote down or in favor of a budget regardless of whether it conforms to Prop 46 or not. So really, because it can be interpretted in many ways, Prop 46 should be considered a guideline rather than a rigid ordinance.

In the same article, Board of Finance Chairman David Hosmer disagreed with Richardson’s findings, calling it a matter of interpretation. Read the rest of this entry »

If you experience problems interacting with the site email cafe_administrator@hotmail.com. Thanks – Admin

This is a repost of this invitation for Thursday Night’s Board of Education “Meet & Greet”

Woodstock Public Schools
147a Route 169
Woodstock, CT 06281

Press Release:

Contact: Lindsay Paul, Chairman 860.974.3767

January 16, 2008

The Woodstock Board of Education invites the Woodstock community to join us and your other elected officials at an informal “Meet and Greet” event to be held Thursday, January 31st. 2008 at the Inn at Woodstock Hill, from 7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.

The purpose of this event is purely social; we hope our Woodstock citizens and our elected board and commission members and other officials will better get to know each other as individuals, away from the constructs of official roles and responsibilities. Trustees of the Woodstock Academy are invited, as is our Superintendent, Dr. Francis Baran, and the Headmaster of Woodstock Academy, Mr. Rich Foye. A cash bar will be available, along with light snacks. The Woodstock Middle School Jazz Band will be featured with a performance around 7:30 p.m.

Please note that this is a social event and not a Public Meeting. In order to comply with requirements of the Freedom of Information Act, elected officials may not discuss town or board-related business.

Mr. Richard Naumann of The Inn Woodstock Hill is generously making available this lovely venue and is donating the light refreshments in order to make this event possible.

To help us better plan, we ask that you R.S.V.P. to let us know if you will attend. Please respond by Thursday, January 24th to WBOE Secretary Mrs. Carol Andrzeicik at 928.7816 or andrzeicikc@woodstockschools.net.

We look forward to seeing you on January 31st.

There will be any number of HTML anomalies that will require fixing, but for the most part we are live. Enjoy!

Becki and I always wanted to have a Café. This stems from our formative years together in the mid 1980’s in Palo Alto CA when we used to stop off daily at Printers’ Ink café/bookstore on California Avenue in the center of Palo Alto. I had a real espresso cappuccino a day while Becki had a latte. We’d also order one slice of lemon pound cake and split it, each alternating in taking a bite. As the cake got smaller and smaller, so would the bites, and eventually we were down to a tiny crumb giggling as we wondered who would be bold enough to finish it. Occasionally, Linus Pauling and other town luminaries would show up, and there were work colleagues, writers, song composers, readers, brainiacs, local friends, etc., sitting around sipping java and having deep thought or conversation…sometimes even political conversation. I suppose some of this goes on at Java Jive and the Vanilla Bean but our schedule has changed making it difficult for us to travel to a coffee house.

Our yearning for the coffee house life led us to establish the Woodstock Café (www.woodstockctcafe.com). As Mr. Laskey suggested astutely in his Letter to the Editor of the Villager (late November), the Café was formed as “a place where our citizens could get together to chat and probably be enlightened by other opinions.”

The Café views the people of Woodstock and the surrounding towns as like a large Internet cloud that houses the collective intelligence of the total population. If we combine this collective knowledge, offer it to the entire population, and tap into it for answers and understanding, we might learn some things important to each of us that, in turn, might benefit Woodstock.

This is our new server. This change should result in a better cup of coffee.

We would like to thank Theron Parlin, a world class blogger, for helping us to get started in October 2005 and helping us to make this transition. We would also like to thank Leo Pellerin at Bright Egg for helping us with this new look.

John Leavitt

Thought I would attach a section of PZC’s December 20th Meeting Minutes describing Evan’s application request to close out this blog thread:

Notes from December 20 2007 PZC Meeting

Roll Call – David Fortin, John Anastasi, Jeff Gordon, Gail Dickinson, Frederick Rich, Seth Spalding, Joseph Adiletta, Dexter Young, Dorothy Durst, Margaret Wilson (7:37).

c. Garth Evans & Leila Phillip, 2-lot subdivision, Pulpit Rock Subdivision

Terence Chambers, Professional Engineer, KWP present on behalf of his client and is requesting feedback from the Commission. History of the property is provided as follows. A portion of this parcel was originally connected to Douglas Building, Inc. subdivision proposal that came before the PZC in the past. This piece was purchased by an LLC with the intent of preserving as open space with one exception. The LLC sold 5.2 acres to Garth Evans and Leila Philips with the expressed intent in the contract that they would be able to subdivide and gain one additional lot. Their intent is to subdivide into two parcels, one containing their existing house and one new building lot. Read the rest of this entry »

‘Jackson’ asks:
“If strict maintenance of current programs, subject to increases in contractual obligations for salaries, Academy tuition, insurance and utilities, puts the BOE in a deficit as has happened the past several years, will (the BOE) support negotiating the Academy tuition and/or seeking legal recourse based on the presumption the Academy tuition is a state mandate?”

Please read Kevin Ford’s riveting synopsis of the last BOE meeting posted at his site “Kevin in Woodstock”.

Some key points that Kevin discusses:

• Kevin voted as chair of the Communications Committee. …

• Kevin is on the Finance and Personnel Committee also…

•  If WA tuition was considered a state mandate it wouldn’t be the entire tuition… just the portion that increases from year to year.

•  Presentations by two state-funded Magnet schools: The Quinebaug Middle College High School program and the EASTCONN ACT program – possible alternate choices to high school students…

•  The BOF was not receptive at all to the two items the BOE recommended as excemptions to Prop 46 and responded by saying <em>’the school could always turn down the heat’</em>.

•  Kevin gives his views on the so called ‘legal opinion’ of the BOF re: Prop 46.

• It looks like the increase in the grand list, and thus the increase in the town’s budget will be around 1%….

• AND SO MUCH MORE.

 Admin

16 earlier comments are placed at the end of this article on the next page.

Read the rest of this entry »

I have read through the information on this particular cell tower proposal before the Connecticut Siting Council. State statutes detail a process for cell tower applicants and also list a number of municipal agencies that must be notified of an application, which in the case of Woodstock, include the First Selectman, the PZC, the Conservation Commission, and the IWWA. Woodstock can hold its own public hearings on such matters through its boards and commissions, and then provide information to the Siting Council. In the case of the cell tower proposal you mention (docket #350), there is a well-written and detailed letter from the Conservation Commission. The State Dept of Public Health has also written a letter with a number of important points contained within it. The PZC is listed as having sent a letter on this item on August of 2007 (I was not on the PZC at that time), requesting that alternative siting locations be considered by the applicant and the Siting Council. There is a listing of the First Selectman’s office and the Town Planner having been involved in the process last year.

State statutes give the Siting Council the final authority in its decisions, although the Siting Council itself a number of years ago has said that local “municipal input and guidance is absolutely necessary” for its process of reviewing and deciding applications before it. I don’t know the track record of the Siting Council with regard to how much it listens to local concerns, etc… It appears per the Conservation Commission’s letter to the Siting Council dated January 11th, 2008, that there may be some issue to clarify regarding to what degree official local input was sought fully by the applicant.

Any way, it does appear that the PZC has this item on its list of things to be aware of. There is a period of time allowed by state statute after a Siting Council hearing and again after a Siting Council deliberation for people to comment further (although there are limits to what can be submitted). I’m assuming that Woodstock will avail itself of such, as is determined to be necessary and appropriate. Read the rest of this entry »

Several years ago I started taking a 2.2 mile walk for exercise. My route was from my house on route 197 west to route 169; then south on 169 taking a left east on County Road; then back west on Woodstock Road past Muddy Brook back to 169 and home.

When I started doing this, I could not avoid noticing the trash strewn along the roadside. To make these walks more productive and less boring, I tied a large black trashbag to my belt and carried a three-pronged garden instrument to spear and pick up paper, bottles, and cans. The first time I did this I filled the bag at about a third of the way through the walk…but no worries, I had a second bag in my pocket which was full after about two-thirds of the way…again no worries, I found a third trash bag along the way that allowed me to finish the job. After doing this for several weeks along the same route, I reached a steady state of trash recovery – that is, about a half of a bag was the amount thrown out of cars each day along the same route unless I got lucky and found an extra-special pay-load.

One day I found a tightly sealed gallon glass bottle half full of dill pickles, a loaf of bread, and a butternut squash all at the same spot. Strange but this one site along the route produced groceries multiple times…go figure. One of the four roads on my route was especially good for nips, those tiny bottles of liquor (empty) that are probably downed in one gulp…then out the window to destroy the evidence. We still have a dispenser of alcohol wipes that I picked up on one trek. Read the rest of this entry »

From ‘Graylady’ : “Are you aware that the BOE budget goes through an audit every year and that the auditors look closely at what money is spent where? Are the people that slam the BOE budget implying that the auditors are “on the take” and let the BOE hide money? Isn’t that a little ridiculous?”

Maybe someone out there can help me with a question. If we have an Economic Development committee, and we had MFATF review town issues and make these recomendations, will this lead to a cohesive plan for the present and future of our town?

It seems to me that we need a leader who can come up with a plan and goals to ensure that our community will thrive. Most folks agree that Prop 46 is deflationary once it is thoroughly explained to them. Yet, we want to have our cake and eat it too because we do not want to change 46. We want it to cap our taxes. So then shouldn’t we come up with a real plan for economic development that will not change “the character” of our town, but will provide needed revenue and jobs for our residents? If one feels that we currently have plenty of revenue and only need to spend it more wisely, that is a topic worthy of discussion, but it doesn’t acknowledge the fact that a time is coming in the future (with a deflationary 46) when we will no longer have plenty of revenue but we will still have service needs such as education (regardless of grade) and needs served by the highway and fire depts., etc.

Isn’t it a matter of prudence then that we address our future needs now while we have the time to fully explore our options? I think that our current First Selectman has the background to take the lead on the issue of our future and hold informal town meetings to discuss this with the residents. Another undertaking might be to align the boards in town. I hear a lot of talk about “special interests”, but very little talk of common interests. I hope he chooses to do something along these lines. Doing nothing is an option, but I feel that it is a poor one.

(see 42 older comments at the bottom of this article) Read the rest of this entry »

The BOE Meet & Greet is Thursday, January 31st 2008, at the Inn at Woodstock Hill from 7:00 p.m. at 9:00 p.m.

It sure would make for a great night if the Meet & Greet were attended by our new Selectmen, members of the Board of Finance, members of Planning & Zoning, supporters of the Education Foundation and PTA, Cafe’ers, teachers, school administrators, parents, Academy people, local business people, etc…No business or politics – just a social affair. Admin

I think that the BOE’s idea about finding new ways (or ways that may seem new, but are worth doing none the less) to foster communication among the various boards and commissions within town government, and among the general public in Woodstock, is a good one. I myself am planning to attend the meet and greet event. One of the 3 purpose points of the MFATF was to explore ways to improve communication within and with town government. I hope that this idea takes hold and moves forward in Woodstock. It can only help to improve the image of the boards and commissions and give people opportunities to meet and talk with their elected officials.

Regarding discussions that can and cannot be held with elected officials, the FOIA statutes define limitations on what can be discussed. Members of a board or commission cannot discuss board or commission items, otherwise it could constitute an illegal public meeting. One cannot discuss specifics of a pending item before a board or commission. One can have social conversations. One can talk about general items and issues in Woodstock. But, the meet and greet event cannot become a public meeting type of event regarding decisions and potential decisions of a board or commission.

I hope that people attend the event. I understand that people will have other things to do on January 31st in the evening. So, I hope that there are future such events around town during the year.

Jeff Gordon
Planning & Zoning Commission

“There is something wrong with this world, something fundamentally and basically wrong. I don’t think we have to look too far to see that. I’m sure most of you would agree with me in making this assertion. And when we stop to analyze the cause of our world’s ills, many things come to mind.

We begin to wonder if it is due to the fact that we don’t know enough. But it can’t be that. Because in terms of accumulated knowledge we know more today than men have known in any period of human history. We have facts at our disposal. We know more about mathematics, about science, about social science, and philosophy, than we’ve ever known in any period of the world’s history. So it can’t be that we don’t know enough.

And then we wonder if it is due to the fact that our scientific genius lags behind. That is, if we have not made enough progress scientifically. Well then, it can’t be that. For our scientific progress over the past years has been amazing. Man through his scientific genius has been able to dwarf distance so that today it is possible to eat breakfast in New York City and supper in London, England. Back in 1853 it took three days to go from New York City to Washington D.C.. Today, you can go from here to China in less time than that. It can’t be because man is stagnant in his scientific progress. Man’s scientific genius has been amazing.

I think we have to look much deeper than that if we are to find the real cause of man’s problems and the real cause of the world’s ills today. If we are to really find it I think we will have to look into the hearts and souls of men.” *

After reading these words I paused and thought of how relevant they were. Read the rest of this entry »

21st Century Skills Defined

I was talking with a couple of friends tonight – out in the parking lot – you know, the meeting after the meeting. As parking lot meetings tend to go, this was no different… no specific agenda, fluid exchanges covering different subjects, a mix of topical information strained through the sieves of our individual life experiences. One of the things that kept cropping up in our exchanges was how different things are now than they were when we all came up (or even ten years ago), not to mention how they will be ten years hence. For years, perhaps since the beginning of man’s adventure through ages, information has been limited. It has been contained and the possession of it became a source of power. Now, as we enter into this age of digital technology, it is as if information can no longer be contained… it is exploding. No longer is the mere possession of information and knowledge the key to success or survival. We need to be able to determine what information we need (and in which media form we need it), but also how to analyze the information, eliminate the psuedo-information, validate and prioritize what remains, and come to a conclusion. Literacy has become a much more complex achievement.

As society changes, the skills needed to negotiate the complexities of life also change. In the early 1900s, a person who had acquired simple reading, writing, and calculating skills was considered literate. Only in recent years has the public education system expected all students to build on those basics, developing a broader range of literacies (International ICT Literacy Panel, 2002). To achieve success in the 21st century, students also need to attain proficiency in science, technology, and culture, as well as gain a thorough understanding of information in all its forms. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday we heard news of the successful cloning of human embryonic stem cells representing a unique human individual by scientists at the small private company, Stemagen in La Jolla California. Prior to this break-through, human embryonic stem cells had not been successfully cloned - only other mammals such as sheep, cattle, goats, mice, cats & dogs, etc have been cloned. In May of 2005 a Korean scientist reported a false claim of this cloning accomplishment, a claim that was later disproved as other scientists attempted to verify the Korean result.

The details of Stemagen’s success appear in the latest issue of the journal Stem Cells published on January 17, 2008. The cloning of human embryonic stem cells was accomplished by inserting the nucleus of a male individual’s fibroblast (skin cell) into a enucleated female egg; then incubating and culturing stem cells from the blastocyst that developed from the artificially fertilized human egg. This success produced stocks of thousands to millions of toti-potent stem cells identical genetically to a single individual, and these cells can now be the progenitors of all tissues of the body of that individual. Stemagen’s CEO, Samuel Wood, M.D. Ph.D., was a donor of the fibroblasts from which cell nuclei were taken to fertilize the enucleated female egg. Thus, embryonic cells that developed with Dr. Wood’s donated nuclei are clones of his own progenitor cells. Read the rest of this entry »