Woodstock CT Café

Today, May 31st, despite a slow post election period in January and February the  Café readership continues to grow. A total of 751 articles and 8,315 comments have been posted since October 2005. In first 5 months of 2008 the Café published 188 articles averaging 37-38 per month or 8-9 per week.

Growth in Cafe Readership

(See the explanation for the Page Load and Unique Visit numbers at the Bottom of the article.)

When we switched to our new look in late January by changing our blog template our number of page turns dropped. This may be due to our larger list of articles on the front page. We are not sure why page turns have gone down but, more importantly, visitation is increasing.

The Café estimates that there may be as many a 600-800 people visiting frequently or infrequently by assessing the number of different Internet Protocol (IP) addresses that are recorded by our StatCounter. However, when we changed our server to Bright Egg in late January we lost more than half a month of stats and that’s why we didn’t post the quarterly stats in April.

The other interesting finding is that our host (Bright Egg) which manages small business commercial websites was surprised by the volume of “hits” on the Café. It turns out the we are not detecting all of our visitors with our StatCounter software because some visitors have ‘masked’ IP addresses (either intentionally or unintentionally). Read the rest of this entry »

I think the worst gaff the BOF did was when asked if they thought the budget was in compliance with Prop 46 there was a pregnant pause; that looked bad. I’d probably characterize this as more of a lack of PR savvy then a lack of leadership. If Mr. Richardson’s group understands where that quote came from (and from past experience, I suspect they do) then that points to them being much better at the PR game than the BOF members. It also points to the fact that they are actively thinking about PR and how to manage public perception.But let’s be honest, Mr. Richardson’s tactics really come down to exactly that. Selective reading from the legal opinions in such a way that it changes their intended meaning, putting out information into several media outlets, repeating the same claims over and over again. All actions designed to change public perception but not necessarily to convey the truth.

So yes, our BOF is not good at PR and not being PR savvy isn’t the same as not being transparent. Yes, they knew Mr. Richardson was coming but did little to plan for him. However, in most towns I’ve lived in the finance group does not come against this level of orchestrated PR campaign. Under “normal” circumstances they would not need to. It’s unfortunate that our BOF find itself in a position.

I don’t think Mr. Richardson is doing much to make the BOF more transparent. In fact, I’d argue that he is obfuscating the concerns of citizens that may actually have some validity. But I don’t think he cares. As an observer of his actions, in my opinion they would seem to have one primary goal, to reduce taxes. It doesn’t matter where they come from.

Kevin

This post represents my personal opinions and in no way should be considered an official act of the BOE or that I am speaking on behalf of the BOE in any way.

The Board of Finance can shove their words up their arses. Whether you agree with Dave Richardson or not, he is a voting taxpayer and has every right to question the BOF as much as he damn well pleases as well as the rest of the town for that matter. In fact, I wish they would.

When Mr. Hosmer states “it would be impossible to conduct the town’s business” he really means “it would be impossible to continue business as usual” which is to challenge nothing, scrutinize nothing, and change nothing. To Mr. Hosmer transparency means we can see right through him…and that’s exactly what he doesn’t want to happen. That’s why he says so little. Mr. Richardson is a thorn in his side and frankly, deserving of it.

I am reminded of the words of Thoreau in Civil Disobedience, “there will never be a free and enlightened state until the state comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly.” Instead, what we have is a local government that believes the individual is just an annoyance.

While I agree with Kevin that “public opinion can be manipulated to keep taxes as low as possible” it must be concluded then that if in fact this is a true statement, public opinion could also be manipulated as well to believe that the answer to all problems is raising taxes and spending more money. Read the rest of this entry »