Woodstock CT Café

from Frank Corden

Independent, Taxpayer, Con and all others who seem to be routinely participating in a number of thoughtful discussions, I’d like to tee one up that flows from Independent’s comment above regarding a few tough years ahead.

Clearly, we need to get our state and federal budgets under control. As we look at the approach of the Reagan Republicans (and as most recently championed by the Tea Party activist), abandoning regulation hasn’t served us very well. Their collective cry for “smaller government” is too simplistic. There appears to be this sense that by starving government for funds, government will get better.

Rather it seems that a cash poor government is generally headed to becoming a poor government. Case in point, starving the regulatory arms of the SEC, the bank regulators and the food safety inspectors hasn’t made us any richer or safer.

Organizational behavior virtually guarantees a poor outcome. When organizations are starved for resources, in the absence of VERY STRONG leadership, the organizations don’t try to limit what they do, but rather peanut-butter the resources across as many of their previous activities as possible. The result is that the organization tries to “do it all” but instead does it all poorly.

If we are going to reduce government spending and still have well run programs that protect the health and safety of our citizens and the financial future of our country, what we need to do is to settle on the appropriate priorities for government at each level, federal, state and local. Then be rigorous about holding to those priorities.

So, the question I pose for discussion is, “what are the appropriate rolls for the federal government” and “what should we shut down”. In each case of the do’s and don’ts, I like to discuss what rationale we would use to justify the recommendation.

from John 

WVG, Your persistence in your last comment about having been here before jogged my memory. I like the way you make things up as you go along. It wasn’t four years ago as you suggested in one of your first comments (maybe just a smoke screen). It was more recently that you graced the Cafe with your presence and inimitable style (I hope I spelled that correctly ). Since you are using a pseudonym now, we will leave your identity at that. You were wrong on the four year span between your two strings of commentary; no, it was not before we came out of the closet; no, you did not use pseudonyms; no, you weren’t banned; no you are not a valley girl; and yes we put you in wackety rants  for two comments … and “biblion” and “gmx” are prevocative to say the least. As for use of Siberia or Wackity Rants, our friend Con has straighten me out about that practice. It was also interesting that Ernie came back to the Cafe when you did, but that may be just a coincidence. As I said earlier, you are very entertaining and we like to be entertained. Readers sometime forget but the Cafe never forgets.

During your last visit (a couple of years ago), I had the distinct feeling that you were on a mission on behalf of someone else more local or a particular group with a political agenda. As you are from another town, why would you lower yourself to unproductive activity like blogging in Woodstock. I sort of have the same feeling about your presence now. That’s okay though because we all have missions and/or agendas. The Cafe really runs on its own as it has since October 2005 so your contributions are welcomed within reason.

It’s been an education for me to read your commentary about election procedures. I haven’t the time to check anything you have said although you sound convincing. You are certainly in a position to speak with authority though. Maybe Bill will learn something during his tussle with you.

from Frank Corden

Sorry folks. I’ve been traveling over the last couple of weeks and consistent with company policy, won’t use my laptop for personal/political purposes.

Regardless, I didn’t realize a request for clarification would engender such a vitriolic debate.

This shouldn’t have been about me personally. I’m sorry it devolved to that. It’s about the actions and positions that politically active citizens take.

To go back to the original post, my question of WVG was what actions, activities or positions did Shultz et al take that benefited the schools (note I’ve seen none documented to date on the threads. If you have posted some my apologies, I could have missed a thread), and what actions/positions did I take that were detrimental (again, I’ve not seen any specifics).

WVG, any comment?

For the record my preference was to run again for the BoE slot. I did interview with the Woodstock RTC nominating committee. I did not have the support of the nominating committee and didn’t believe I had the time or resources to commit to a primary challenge.

So it was a personal decision.

from Woodstock Valley Girl

Subtitle: An Ode to ‘Bill’

Fact: Frank Corden never would have been endorsed by the Woodstock Republicans (and by “Woodstock Republicans” I mean, the nominating committee of the RTC, the entire RTC, and a caucus of all Republicans) for the Board of Education this year. He would have been nominated if he were to pull a primary petition, force and win a primary and win that primary BUT Bill, let’s come back to reality, the odds of Frank prevailing in a Republican primary this past September were slim to none, you know it and I know it and so does Frank.

Fact: There are three methods by which to endorse candidate for municipal office, I quoted the statute word for word and you sit there insisting I’m wrong and that I’m “taking things out of context.” “Petitioning” is NOT a method of “endorsement.” Bill, you are obviously too stupid to realize this. Petitioning is a method by which one gets their name on a primary ballot which then determines who gets NOMINATED. Bill, this is why I’ve been asking you to please explain to me the difference between “endorsement” and “nomination” and unfortunately your obstinate attitude and refusal to do so has resulted in you making a complete ass out of yourself because you’ve proven you don’t know the key difference between those terms as they relate to candidates on the ballot.

Fact: Delegates for district and state conventions are chosen IN ACCORDANCE WITH LOCAL PARTY RULES which varies from town to town, some do it by Town Committee and others by caucus. If you don’t believe me Bill, start looking in the legal notice section this month and you will see MANY towns posting legal notices for party caucuses that will be held to “endorse delegates for state and district conventions.” The window for towns to hold those caucuses this year is between March 23rd and March 30th and the legal notices need to be in at least five days before that. Tell ya what Bill, I’ll scan one and email it to the admin who will post it for all to see how wrong you are. Read the rest of this entry »

from Proud Liberal 

Brownie, Conservative judges are the ones who vindicate corporations over the working guy. Take the recent court ruling on corporate campaign contributions and of course, how can we forget eminent domain? Liberalism looks out for everyone equally and I see no harm in that. Everyone deserves a fair trial and are innocent before proven guilty. I wish the sanctimonious religious right acted in such a Christian fashion.

Woodstock Valley Girl, the reason our economy is in the tank is because of capitalistic greed, not jealous liberals. I could care less about the rich. I just want to live simply and peacefully in a country where the working class is treated fairly. Before you start stereotyping people you should do some volunteer work. There are a lot of very good decent people that are on welfare. Not everyone is as fortunate as you (nor as ignorant, thank god).

Mr. Wetzel, I don’t want anything from anybody else, but I am willing to contribute to the welfare of a society so that it remains civilized, it treats people fairly, and provides safety nets for people. It seems to me that you don’t care about any of these things. It seems to me like you would prefer to live in a stressed out dog-eat-dog world where the rich get richer by exploiting the rest of us while you rationalize this behavior by pretending that you are above it all. Well, someday you might not be. You should try doing some volunteer work and maybe you will see how the other half lives.

 from Dean

WVG, you are just guessing on election results. I know plenty of republicans who would have voted for him (Corden), myself included. Heck, I’ll draw some better conclusions than that from the past races.

1) If Mr. Rosendahl ran that election, he would have lost badly, perhaps worse than Mr. Richardson. A lot of people were tired of his attacks. That was evidenced in the extraordinarily low vote totals that his allies got.

2) If Mr. Powers ran against anyone else, he would have also gotten the same number of votes as Mr Richardson. He got less than 50% of the vote running against himself.

3) If Mr. Corden ran in the general election, he would have won. Pretty clear from the June results.

Given the recent election results, it is clear that the majority supported his actions and the board’s.

Anyways, I’d much rather be talking about the future than debating whether someone could have gotten through a primary when they chose not to run. That is pretty old news.

from Con

Unfortunately for supporters of Scott Brown I think because of several factors he is bound to disappoint or fail outright.

1) The pendulum always swings, it’s only the speed which changes - now it’s really moving fast. A month before election he had ‘no chance’, but Voters are fickle and demand instant gratification. This can all backfire on him - if Voters are that tough to predict and change so much so fast, what’s to prevent them from pouncing on him at first screw-up like they do with Sox players who fail?

2) More importantly, he represents something that is too big for him. That is, just like Sarah Palin, he rode to the national stage faster than most any national political figure - that is not an equation for success. He would have to be both brilliant and perfect just to live up to expectations and NOT fail. He’s neither (no one can be that perfect). Like Palin, he’ll have a lot of very smart journalists and ‘pundits’ intent on tripping him up - I would not want to be in that position. How can he win?

3) There is another team of smart and highly effective investigators who are ‘vetting’ him and his past. Again, I would not want that! Who would be comfortable - especially in this information age - knowing that every single aspect of your life and your past is under the most intense scrutiny literally in the world? The Party does not want to be surprised by some bad fact coming out; opponents would love it - BOTH have huge incentive to dig deep and find absolutely anything that exists. Again, only someone perfect could survive this.

Most Senators get to that position slowly and they learn the game through years and years of it, each year getting incrementally more challenging and both obstacles and rewards growing apace. Brown has arrived at ‘Year 12? without having gone through 12 years of ‘Senator School’ AND he is not someone like Obama who basically set out at age 3 to be President and knew what to do and what not to do.

Too much has been placed on Brown’s shoulders or coat-tails and he’s not the type to be able to handle it. November is 8 months away - that is 10 times as much Time that Brown needed to go from obscure little fish in little pond to Hero for an hour. Voters, with their tiny attention span, will turn away from him in droves and in exactly the fashion with which they turned TO him…

by Newcomer

Your first statement (in your post #38) summarizing how I feel about this is a bit off (this is to Taxpayer). On a National level, I do feel that the political parties have separated themselves from the people they are supposed to represent. However, your second thought is not my conclusion about this; namely that “therefore the people can somehow be vanquished from taking any responsibility for their government.” This is an incorrect characterization about my position on this. In fact, I feel completely that the opposite is true. Because there is such a disconnect between the political parties and society at large, the people who are not part of this machine must come together collectively to exert their influence upon their elected officials and the political parties whom those officials represent.

Politicians like to tell us all about how they represent us when they are campaigning. But then they get into office and owe their party and so many special interests favors for getting them elected that the people end up at the bottom of the totem pole. The people need to stop tolerating this. We need to stop allowing our elected officials to put our interests last instead of first. And, no, I do not have much confidence that this can be done from the inside out (from within a political party). It’s too late for that. Both parties have grown too wealthy and too powerful and they are now locked in a power struggle with one another. This can only be done at the grass roots level, in my opinion.

You mentioned the tea party movement in a different post elsewhere in this thread. I think that movement needs to exercise caution at this point. Read the rest of this entry »

Woodstock’s Winners:

·        Woodstock Villager for providing improved and more accurate local news coverage under the leadership of editor Stephanie Jarvis and reporter Matt Sanderson.

·        The Woodstock PTO for rallying the electorate to vote NO and reject the repeal of the WBOE in the June 9^th referendum.

·        Allan Walker for his steady leadership as First Selectman of Woodstock.

·        Woodstock Municipal Employees for accepting a zero pay raise.

·        Anthony Walker and Scott Sincerbeaux for their uncontested election to the Board of Education and their acquisition of leadership of the BOE.

·        Lindsay Paul for her years of leadership of Woodstock education system and its improvements during those turbulent times.

·        Frank Baran for his leadership and improvement of Woodstock’s education system.

·        Kevin Ford for growing into a valuable and constructive member of WBOE in his first two years of service to the Town.

·        Kim Caren for quietly bringing new leadership and perspective to Woodstock Academy.

·        Woodstock’s pro-education electorate for the defeat of anti-education forces trying to undermine the Board of Education.

·        Dean Audet for his constructive support and contributions toward improvement of the Town Highway Facility.

·        Citizens of Woodstock for the defeat of irresponsible forces trying to block much needed and long awaited improvements in the salt storage and highway facility thus avoiding State takeover of the mandated improvements.

·        Richard Cass for years of contributions to the community and then persevering as a Democrat to win a six-year term on the Board of Finance.  

·        Community Partners for Woodstock’s Future (CPWF, a PAC) for helping to persuade Woodstock’s electorate (1) to reject the repeal of the BOE in the June 9^th referendum (vote NO), (2) to elect the more effective candidates for Town Boards in contested November 3^rd elections, and (3) to pass the December 8^th referendum bond proposal which funds the repair salt facility and long-needed improvements of the Highway Facility.  According to the Villager (January 1 issue), founding members of the CPWF published 14 Letters to the Editor in the Villager in attempt to persuade the electorate.

Woodstock’s Losers

·        The Biggest Losers are Dave Richardson, Craig Powers, Stephen Rosendahl, Preston Shultz and Avis Spalding – For repeatedly failing to persuade the Woodstock electorate that the sky is falling with repeated publication of mis-information and erroneous claims of misconduct by the Town leadership. The following list is the number of Letters to the Editor published in the Villager (according to the Villager, January 1 issue) by these people who also use the WoodstockUntruth.com as their soapbox:  
Richardson (7)
Powers (4)
Rosendahl (3)
Shultz (1)
Spalding (1)

·        The Woodstock Democratic Town Committee and Chairman Jim Kaeding for endorsing the actions of the above group and failing to provide adequate endorsements for their contested candidates.

·        Margaret Wholean for receiving only 441 votes in her candidacy for the BOF even though she was a former First Selectman. She also aligned herself with the above group.

·        Citizens for Prudent Spending (CPS) for allowing their PAC to be high jacked to serve the special interests of the above group.

·        Woodstock Academy Board of Trustees for pursuing their special interests at the expense of Woodstock residents while failing to develop a successful fund raising program.

see http://www.woodstockrepublicans.com/id18.html

for example:

6. What do you see as being the most important issue facing Woodstock today?

332 people answered     
a)      Educational  funding    36%
b)      Planning and Zoning    14%
c)      Relieving tax burden    21%
d)      Preserving our dairy farms and open space  29%