Obviously, I admire folzgold.
Apr. 27th, 2003 05:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xiphias. . . who's actually trying to DO something about it, rather than just stewing, the way I am.
Melrose, the town we're in, is in deep financial shit. And we probably need a Prop 2 1/2 override. (Some neoconservative folks back in 1980 got this law passed in Massachusetts which says that a town can not get more than two and a half percent more money from property taxes than they did in the year before. Since the cost of living increases by more than 2.5%/year, you can see how this really squeezes towns. Every once in a while, people have to convice folks to get up off their asses and actually bump the property taxes up to something reasonable.)
Now, Melrose got itself into deep financial shit well and properly all on its own. I mean, okay, so our last mayor signed off on this nifty deal where Big Dig contractors could dump TOXIC SLUDGE on the town golf course, which meant that people couldn't USE the town golf course, and, since people pay the town to use the golf course, Melrose lost a bunch of money, besides losing the golf course. Then, of course, there's this year, where a company came into town and got lots of Melrose companies to pay them lots of money to hang advertising banners from the lampposts.
Of course, said company doesn't OWN the lampposts, and doesn't have the RIGHT to hang advertising banners from the lampposts, and refused to refund the businesses' money when this was pointed out to them.
Now, rather than do the thing which any SANE person would have done, which is to tell the company that they can either pay the money back now, or pay the money back plus penalty damages after the civil trial, which would be followed by the criminal trial in which the people who ran that company would get to go to prison for felony fraud, the town decides to let them go through with this, so that the companies in question won't lose all the money that this other company bilked out of them. But it gets worse. The town doesn't own the lampposts, either. No, those are owned by the ELECTRIC COMPANY. And, somehow, the TOWN ended up with the responsibility to pay the money to get the permission from the electric company.
Hunh?
All this is going on in a town where the schools are in danger of losing accrediation, as well as in danger of just plain falling down.
So, yeah, people in Melrose are saying, "We don't want to pay more, because the town should have used the money they already got, better."
Yeah, probably. So fucking what? You think that makes the schools any safer? You think that helps any of the kids? No, we need to suck it up, pay the cash to bail the town out of this hole -- and THEN make sure that anyone who ever tries to bilk this town ever again gets to see the backside of a cell door for five to fifteen years.
Maybe I should send this post to the Melrose Free Press. I'll probably have to cut out some of the "fucking"s, though.
Melrose, the town we're in, is in deep financial shit. And we probably need a Prop 2 1/2 override. (Some neoconservative folks back in 1980 got this law passed in Massachusetts which says that a town can not get more than two and a half percent more money from property taxes than they did in the year before. Since the cost of living increases by more than 2.5%/year, you can see how this really squeezes towns. Every once in a while, people have to convice folks to get up off their asses and actually bump the property taxes up to something reasonable.)
Now, Melrose got itself into deep financial shit well and properly all on its own. I mean, okay, so our last mayor signed off on this nifty deal where Big Dig contractors could dump TOXIC SLUDGE on the town golf course, which meant that people couldn't USE the town golf course, and, since people pay the town to use the golf course, Melrose lost a bunch of money, besides losing the golf course. Then, of course, there's this year, where a company came into town and got lots of Melrose companies to pay them lots of money to hang advertising banners from the lampposts.
Of course, said company doesn't OWN the lampposts, and doesn't have the RIGHT to hang advertising banners from the lampposts, and refused to refund the businesses' money when this was pointed out to them.
Now, rather than do the thing which any SANE person would have done, which is to tell the company that they can either pay the money back now, or pay the money back plus penalty damages after the civil trial, which would be followed by the criminal trial in which the people who ran that company would get to go to prison for felony fraud, the town decides to let them go through with this, so that the companies in question won't lose all the money that this other company bilked out of them. But it gets worse. The town doesn't own the lampposts, either. No, those are owned by the ELECTRIC COMPANY. And, somehow, the TOWN ended up with the responsibility to pay the money to get the permission from the electric company.
Hunh?
All this is going on in a town where the schools are in danger of losing accrediation, as well as in danger of just plain falling down.
So, yeah, people in Melrose are saying, "We don't want to pay more, because the town should have used the money they already got, better."
Yeah, probably. So fucking what? You think that makes the schools any safer? You think that helps any of the kids? No, we need to suck it up, pay the cash to bail the town out of this hole -- and THEN make sure that anyone who ever tries to bilk this town ever again gets to see the backside of a cell door for five to fifteen years.
Maybe I should send this post to the Melrose Free Press. I'll probably have to cut out some of the "fucking"s, though.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2003-04-27 02:20 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-04-27 02:25 pm (UTC)And if, you know, it wasn't TOXIC SLUDGE!
I mean, there is a possiblity that, someday, I may wish to learn to play golf. Like, y'know, when they come out with the stripping rules, or something. Although I don't know if that would be allowed on a city-owned golf course.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-04-27 04:16 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-04-27 10:24 pm (UTC)the Melrose Free Press is a very good idea.
This has nothing to do with your post's subject.....
Date: 2003-04-28 10:16 pm (UTC)Whew.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-04-30 04:54 am (UTC)Mmmph, that sarks.
*ambivalent about Massachusetts*
Though I am considering moving back. I grew up in Chelmsford....
(no subject)
Date: 2003-04-30 05:05 am (UTC)Also, one of my wife's college friends runs a gaming store there, 3 Trolls.