Summary of local politics:
Oct. 9th, 2003 11:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xiphiasIn Melrose, where I live, there are two big issues facing the town.
First: We've got this old, dilapitated middle school that is falling down; it's basically to the point of being dangerous to the kids who go to school there. There are basically four options:
1: Spend $20 million to build a brand new middle school. It will actually cost more like $40 million, but the State has a program, expiring this year, to help towns pay to replace old, dangerous school buildings with new ones. And the NEW school could be rebuild ABOVE the flood plain so it wouldn't flood all the time.
2.: Spend $40 million to pretty much gut and rebuild the old middle school. You'd get a building that wasn't quite as nice as in Option 1, and, of course, you'd have to completely abandon the basement, because it floods. And, of course, the ongoing water damage from the flooding would mean that in ten years or so, you'd probably need to spend another $40 million or so.
3. Spend $20 or $25 million to get the middle school kind of sort of vaguely usable, even though it will still be deteriorating.
4. Spend $15 million to do the absolute minimum to get the school building out of the "imminent danger of collapse" state, and get it up to the bare minimum where the building inspector will let people into it next year.
Hmm. Difficult choice, eh?
The other choice is a mayoral election. We've got two candidates.
1. Rob Dolan is the guy who's the mayor now. He filled in after Pat Guerriero left in the middle of his term to work with the governor. Mayor Dolan dealt with a number of crises (including some that Guerriero left behind) with some skill and dedication, and has generally been a competent, decent guy. He's got a good working relationship with, basically, everybody. He hasn't yet decided whether he's going to re-sign the chief of police to another long term contract, because there's a mayoral election coming up in a couple months, and he thinks that, if he doesn't get elected, then THAT mayor should have the right to make decisions about long-term contracts, and it would be wrong to sign people this close to the end of his term.
2. David Balfour is a career hack politician who lost his cushy patronage job at the MDC when Mitt Romney noted that most of the MDC doesn't actually DO anything, and is really just a place for bunches of folks to have cushy patronage jobs, and gutted it. He has no actual ideas about how he wants to deal with any of the problems Melrose is facing. As far as I can tell, he wants to be mayor of Melrose because he kind of needs a job. He hasn't yet decided which of the four options to deal with the middle school he favors.
Boy, that one's a tough choice, too, isn't it?
First: We've got this old, dilapitated middle school that is falling down; it's basically to the point of being dangerous to the kids who go to school there. There are basically four options:
1: Spend $20 million to build a brand new middle school. It will actually cost more like $40 million, but the State has a program, expiring this year, to help towns pay to replace old, dangerous school buildings with new ones. And the NEW school could be rebuild ABOVE the flood plain so it wouldn't flood all the time.
2.: Spend $40 million to pretty much gut and rebuild the old middle school. You'd get a building that wasn't quite as nice as in Option 1, and, of course, you'd have to completely abandon the basement, because it floods. And, of course, the ongoing water damage from the flooding would mean that in ten years or so, you'd probably need to spend another $40 million or so.
3. Spend $20 or $25 million to get the middle school kind of sort of vaguely usable, even though it will still be deteriorating.
4. Spend $15 million to do the absolute minimum to get the school building out of the "imminent danger of collapse" state, and get it up to the bare minimum where the building inspector will let people into it next year.
Hmm. Difficult choice, eh?
The other choice is a mayoral election. We've got two candidates.
1. Rob Dolan is the guy who's the mayor now. He filled in after Pat Guerriero left in the middle of his term to work with the governor. Mayor Dolan dealt with a number of crises (including some that Guerriero left behind) with some skill and dedication, and has generally been a competent, decent guy. He's got a good working relationship with, basically, everybody. He hasn't yet decided whether he's going to re-sign the chief of police to another long term contract, because there's a mayoral election coming up in a couple months, and he thinks that, if he doesn't get elected, then THAT mayor should have the right to make decisions about long-term contracts, and it would be wrong to sign people this close to the end of his term.
2. David Balfour is a career hack politician who lost his cushy patronage job at the MDC when Mitt Romney noted that most of the MDC doesn't actually DO anything, and is really just a place for bunches of folks to have cushy patronage jobs, and gutted it. He has no actual ideas about how he wants to deal with any of the problems Melrose is facing. As far as I can tell, he wants to be mayor of Melrose because he kind of needs a job. He hasn't yet decided which of the four options to deal with the middle school he favors.
Boy, that one's a tough choice, too, isn't it?