Woodstock CT Café

Excerpts taken from http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/28921

The combination of the bad economy and the federally mandated price system for milk has placed many Connecticut dairy farms in precarious financial positions. Although the Senate Appropriations Committee is scheduled to vote today on a bill that may give farmers financial support, some are skeptical that the milk bailout will succeed.

The federal government has mandated the price of milk since the 1930s, when surplus and soaring prices caused many farmers to go out of business. That mandate still exists today. National milk prices are set by trading done by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. The problem, many state dairy farmers have said, is that those prices are set based on farms in the Midwest — which are often larger-scale, cheaper operations — and do not take into account the higher production costs in New England.

In the past two years, over 50 dairy farms have gone out of business in Connecticut — a quarter of the total number of then-operating farms. The Northeast Interstate Dairy Compact, which set the wholesale price of milk to keep regional dairy farmers afloat, dissolved in 2001, and efforts to recreate it have been unsuccessful. In January, the wholesale price dropped from $20 per hundredweight to $11.30, meaning that farmers have been selling their milk for $1.00 per gallon, even though their average cost is $1.90.

The price drop has prompted vocal criticism from many state dairy farmers, who are proposing that the state institute a “safety net” to help local farmers when the market price gets too low.
Read the rest of this entry »

BYOB** – Boats, that is. Canoe or kayak on Roseland Lake. By state law, life jackets are required. Or, for one day only, relive the past and rent a boat at Roseland Park courtesy of the Nahaco Park Commission. A limited supply of kayaks and paddle boats will be available to rent at $5/half hour. Contact Tony at nahaco@aol.com to reserve your time. Read the rest of this entry »

Many northeastern CT towns are ignoring the advice by DBrownie to close the borders, restrict travel, and institute bans, advisories and alerts on pork and certain people.

On Wednesday, Homeland Security spokesperson, Marge Gundersson, was heavily pressed in Town Hall hearings to ignore DBrownie’s advice and close the borders with Thompson, Putnam, Pomfret, Eastford, Union and Massachusetts. Marge defended her decision not to do so, saying it “would be a very, very heavy cost for what fluologists tell us would be marginal benefit.”

First Selectman, Abe Firewalker, defended it too, telling a citizen that it would be “akin to closing the barn door after the cows and pigs were out.”

Experts at Day Kimbal Hospital on the global movement of flu say Gundersson and Firewalker are right. The world, they say, must bow to the inevitable: closing borders would not only fail to stop an airborne virus, but would also cause economic collapse and possibly add to the death rate.

“But it’s wrong to think we’re throwing up our hands and saying ‘Let ’er rip and let’s hope for the best,’ ” said Dr. Leroy Weselicker, director of global migration and quarantine at Day Kimbal Hospital. “This has all been in the country-wide pandemic flu plan since 2007.”

Closing borders is dangerous because many goods needed in a pandemic are made and sold outside Woodstock, said Dr. Jonas Feelgood, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research at Day Kimbal Hospital, including most masks, gowns and gloves, electrical circuits for ventilators and communications gear, and pharmaceutical drugs and the raw materials to make them (for example, most suppliers of shikimic acid, the base ingredient in the antiviral drug Tamiflu, are in China).

“You cut those off and you cripple our health care system,” he said. “Our global just-in-time economy means we are dependent on others.” Much of our food is from other towns and states like the veggies from Morse Farm. “A Kellogg’s Nutri-Grain bar has ingredients from nine countries in it,” Feelgood noted. Read the rest of this entry »

Symantec and Cisco Ironport recommend immediate deletion of email messages  with  these subject lines (see: http://blogs.usatoday.com/technologylive/2009/04/scam-swine-flu-emails-steal-data.html )
– Swine influenza frequently asked questions.pdf
– Swine flu worldwide
– Swine flu in the USA
– US swine flue fears
– First US Sine flue victims
– Swine flu in Hollywood
– Salma Hayek caught swine flu
– Madonna caught swine flu
– US swine flu statistics
– NY victims of swine flu
– First US swine flu victims
– Will swine flu attack USA?
– US swine flu fears

DATE: Thursday May 21, 2009
Time: 7:00 p.m.
LOCATION: Palmer Hall, 523 Route 169, in the historic hill district in Woodstock, CT
TITLE: HISTORY, LORE AND LEGACY OF THE CIVILIAN CONSERVATION CORPS (CCC) IN CT

Marty Podskoch, an author and retired teacher, will give a presentation on the lore and legacy of the CCC under President Roosevelt’s New Deal to relieve poverty and unemployment during the Great Depression in 1933.  They disbanded in 1942 due to the need for men in WWII.

CCC camps were set up in many Connecticut towns, state parks & forests. Workers built trails, roads, campsites, & dams, stocked fish, built & maintained fire tower observer’s cabins & telephone lines, fought fires, and planted millions of trees.

Sponsored by the Woodstock Historical Society, www.woodstockhistoricalsociety.org.  Free and open to the public.

For more information, contact
Douglas Zimmerman, Program Chair

Evening: 860.974.3020
Daytime: 860.424.3800

With the media hype on the current swine flu pandemic I thought I would repost this article published in February 2008. John

‘Real’ influenza is a severe disease caused by the virus of the same name, e.g. influenza virus – usually a particular class of virus called “influenza A virus”. Each year as flu season approaches there is excessive doom and gloom in the media about the threat and dangers of influenza – frightening many media victims needlessly. More recently such hysterical news has been compounded by failures and shortages of vaccines to ward off this disease. Three years ago, for example, we heard much about the failure of Chiron’s flu vaccine and the resulting shortage. When the vaccine did arrive, people sought out this vaccine at local clinics and from their personal physicians. Yet the spread of flu over the last 3 years was a non-event that had nothing to do with efficacy of the vaccine.

I am reminded of the swine flu scare that occurred in the fall of 1977 and winter of 1978. President Ford went on nationwide TV in the late summer of 1977 to announce a program to vaccinate everyone in the United States against this scourge. Approximately 12.5 million doses of the vaccine were administered. The vaccination program was as thorough as the war on polio but no major flu outbreak developed that winter and this non-outbreak had nothing to do with administering of the vaccine. However, 1019 people developed the paralytic Giullain-Barre syndrome during the vaccination program although the CDC’s later evaluation argued “a statistically significant excess risk of GBS following receipt of the influenza vaccine administered in 1978 could not be demonstrated” (CDC Bulletin No. 21, December 14, 1979, Guillain-Barre’ and the 1978-79 Influenza Vaccine). Read the rest of this entry »

from Rebecca Hyde

Notice to Woodstock Democrats:
 
Woodstock Democrats are invited to join Democratic Town Committee members and their guests at a special event this Saturday, April 25 — Democratic Dinners and Desserts.  Some committee members are hosting dinners in their homes, followed by dessert and entertainment at the East Woodstock Congregational Church at 8 pm.  The evening will feature a jazz quartet from UConn.  While we regret dinner invitations are somewhat limited, please feel free to host your own dinner, or just show up at the church at 8, to share dessert and enjoy the music.  Our goal for this event is to build community among Democrats in Woodstock, provide an opportunity to discuss our party’s hopes and priorities for the town, and to get to know people who might be interested in service through town committees, boards, and elected positions. This is not a fundraising event although of course donations for the work of the WDTC are always welcome.  We will be having a traditional spaghetti dinner fundraiser May 30th at Camp Nahaco.  For more information, email Sara Harkness at sara.harkness@uconn.edu.

The list of DTC members is also in the left sidebar.

see http://blogs.courant.com/rick_green/2009/04/merit-pay-public-schools-union.html

These visits do not include visits to archived articles like “Hollywood Comes to Woodstock” and “Animal Control”.

from Bad Boy 135 at the other brigade

Grease fires account for more residential fires and serious burns than any other cause.
This British video is startling and should be shared
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wux85VAnChg

Article in the Norwich Bull on Tuesday night’s (April 21st) Board of Finance meeting.

Principal & Interest Payments = Redemption of Debt (This wasn’t reduced; it was an expense that did not exist.)

Twelve pages of the Town Operating Budget have been posted in succession. The title list is at the top of the right sidebar. Just click on the title to see that page of the budget.

by John 

The proposed Woodstock town operation budget increases expenses by 3 percent for 2009-2010. For people who do not read through to page 29 of the proposed budget, the announcement in the Villager (April 3rd) that the Town Hall had submitted a flat budget with no increase for the coming fiscal year sounded laudable.

This is especially so given that the Town Hall staff will not receive raises in the 2009-2010 fiscal year. But, it is difficult to forget that many of these staff received 9-10 percent raises in Ms. Wholean’s final year. So by not taking raises this coming year, these staff are still benefiting from inappropriate raises given two years ago (who else in Woodstock got 9-10 percent raises that year?). This was self-awarded merit pay I suppose. But Ms. Wholean said on WINY that she needed to jack up her salary so that the Town would eventually be able to afford a Town Administrator .

The 3 percent increase in the Town Operating Budget is apparently justified because debt service will diminish by that amount or by about $135,134. This appears to be how the Town grows the budget transparently (it’s transparent to the taxpayer that this is how the zero increase was achieved). It’s sort of like a Ponzi Scheme perpetrated on the taxpayer. It’s clearly a scheme; otherwise town officials would explain this calculation. I doubt that many taxpayers actually read through the proposed budget. Instead, they accept what the Villager tells them; and they are oblivious of what the Villager doesn’t tell them. I doubt that the reporter Sanderson actually read the budget. Read the rest of this entry »

It has been reported that the Town of Woodstock (both the Town Hall and the Board of Education) produced budgets with a zero percent increase overall for the 2009-2010 fiscal year. On page 28 of the General Government Operations Budget, an increase of 3% is noted for the 2009-2010 fiscal year ($4,511,568 to $4,646,702); however with “Redemption of Debt” diminished by a negative $135,134, the bottom line computes to a 0.00% increase (page 29) for the overall Town Operating Budget. The bulk of the $135,134 saved in redemption of debt in principal & interest payments is the reduction in an annual lease payment by $96,359 (from $105,000 down to $8,641) without identifying what was being leased. Also in this redemption of debt on the Town Operation side a reduction of $5,650 in costs for K-4 school renovations is included. So putting aside reductions in principal and interest payments the Town Operating Budget actually increased by 3% for 2009-2010. To put it another way, these reductions in principal and interest payments were not passed onto the taxpayer.

The proposed annual budget is probably the ONE thing all year that the people in town would (or should) most like to have access to, but it is not on the Official Woodstock Town website. It’s Saturday, April 18th, and the Board of Finance meets on Tuesday, April 21st, to provide an opportunity for taxpayers to voice opinions about this budget.

Becki went to the Town Hall yesterday to get a copy, but none was available. Later, Donna Stefanik from the treasurer’s office was nice enough to deliver a copy of the budget to our home (Thank you very much, Donna).

If this budget is currently posted at the Town website, it is not in an obvious location.

Town Hall Budget (turn page) Read the rest of this entry »