Woodstock CT Café

The Academy announced at their last Trustee meeting that they will begin another round of PR within the community. They have reason to feel impelled toward this. I wonder how many tax dollars will be spent on this new round of PR.

Bob Holland (member of the Ex. Committee and Chair of Buildings and Grounds) believes firmly that, because of his 30-year history of residency in Woodstock, he knows (without any shadow of doubt) that the vast majority of Woodstock residents would enthusiastically vote “Yes!” for the ambitious and costly Academy expansion of an athletic complex within the Historic District. Good thing for Bob that we don’t have any say or vote on the issue. At least he can’t be proven wrong.

John Guszkowski, planner with CME announced in the last PZC meeting that the athletic complex expansion will increase property values of abutters. Who knew!? What great news. John didn’t waste any words explaining how he substantiates this statement but several well-respected, long-term local realtors assure us abutters that this will NOT be the case but, in fact, devaluation will occur. Although I like John’s take on this far more, I defer to the voice of experience on the topic.

If PZC approves this application that includes placement of “non-structures” as big as a football field that will be jammed smack up against abutter’s property lines . . . well, won’t precedence be set with this decision? In that, shouldn’t we all expect to see – in time – more Woodstock residents getting non-structures like a football fields jammed up against their boundary lines too? This should please football fans anyway.

Guszkowski kindly let us know that the Academy doesn’t need to provide a buffer for abutter’s because the just-over-the-stone wall abutter’s land is in “agricultural use” therefore not needy or worthy of a buffer. For all those who own larger tracts of land – this is probably good information for you to know of now. Read the rest of this entry »

See article on Flight Design of South Woodstock

Harry Stefan has brought up the idea of separating the Town Operating budget and the Board of Education budget for the purpose of approval by the voting taxpayers.

It is our understanding that the town of Woodstock can’t do this because we do not have a town charter that says we can do this to over-ride State statutes. Because we do not have a town charter, we’re governed by State statutes which preclude separation of the budgets.

However there is an additional constraint on separation of the budgets. It’s Proposition 46. To conform to the restrictions of Prop 46, both budgets have to be formulated as one to ensure that they adhere to the guidelines of Prop 46. This year for, example, the Board of Finance told both the BOS and the BOE that we they had to cut their budgets by a combined amount of $100,000. It was decided in that BOF public meeting that each would cut their budget by $50,000 to solve the problem. This was done and now this single budget will be approved or disapproved in the referendum on Wednesday. If the budget were to be voted down, both sides would have to be cut more.

The following statement came from Kevin in response to the suggestion by ‘Pro Liber’ that the Board of Education should be more open to dialogue with Mr. Richardson about interpretation of Proposition 46.

“It is not the BOE’s place to officially respond to complaints about the interpretation of Prop 46 that Mr. Richardson is making. The interpretation and implementation of that ordinance falls under the sole purview of the BOF. That would be like the BOF giving official responses to complaints about the BOE’s involvement with EASTCONN’s ACT program (not that there are any complaints about this). While we can individually give our opinions, we don’t have any more weight in this arena as any other voter in town. Read the rest of this entry »