Well sweets, January is now in its second half – jest like the tax bills that people hafta pay this time o’ year – and the “Winter of our discontent” seems to be running apace. Needless to say, effen there is a way this burg can tick the populace off in trying to set off a “pilot program,” the mavens of the Actors Colony known as City Hall will not only find a way to do it, they’d do it with a flare.
Setch is the case that’s happened over the last couple o’ weeks since last we communicated. Sammy Bluejay came in t’other afternoon and said that more than a few people were miffed that “Noncompliance” notices were tacked onto their doors for the “Food Scrap to Energy Program” that was foisted upon the taxpayers in November. “A pilot program,” they said. “Not mandatory,” they said. Yet, “compliance monitoring” began jest before Christmas – something not said when this boondoggle of a program – they did it jest for the grant money, dontcha know – was announced with all the usual bells and whistles.
Now fast forward to the last week or so, and orange “Notices of Noncompliance” were tacked onto peoples’ trash cans, looking like some kind o’ legal notice or t’other. And, the complaints from the populace are coming fast and furious, not only in this office, but in City Hall as well, we are told. Good.
Nobody is against doing things to help the city, but who was the bureaucrat that thought this was a good idea? Are they not paying attention to the anger that’s out there. Are they not aware of the daily nonsense people hafta put up with. This wasn’t jest some technocrat making a bad decision. The word that comes to mind is “moronic,” honey bunch.
Yew can’t palm off a program that’s a “pilot” with all the flowery language about how good for everyone this will be, and ain’t it great what we can do for the environment, but it’s all, ya know, not mandatory, and then make it seem mandatory. This is jest a small incident, but it shows how people in government think – even in municipal government.
Sammy sez that some in the Actors Colony were wary of the way this was rolled out, and were against the whole printing of “notices,” but the usual do-gooders wouldn’t listen. There is real annoyance out there and, when yew couple it with everything else going on in town, one has to wonder how decisions are made – and botched – at 355 Main St.
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Then we see, according to Nelly Nuthatch, that the usual is happening – or not happening – when it comes to the city paying its bills. Evidently, invoices are sent, and then the waiting game begins. And it ain’t that this hasn’t happened before, but the usual excuses are given.
Cobina happened to see the local papyrus about this story, and noted that the same excuses made by city officials concerning the paying of bills this go-round are the same thing that have been said each and every time the matter has come up, in other words, at least once a year.
Telling people reforms are in the works, and we’re making changes ain’t gonna cut it for people who did the work and now want the result of their labors. Now, Cobina don’t wanna be suspicious but every time this seems to come up, it’s cuz the city has tapped out its current resources and is waiting for the next round of tax bills to be paid. Lo and behold, it’s January, and ain’t it coincidental that the second half of the property tax bills are due this month? Yeah, that’s about the size of it.
People like to make jokes about “Ground Hog Day,” and the plot. We seem to live it each and every year here in the Asylum by the Sea. Or, as the old bromide goes, “The more things change, the more they stay the same.
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Speaking of the same, jest when we thought that there would be some movement in finally gettin’ the Arts Center out of the suspended animation it’s been for the past decade or so, things don’t look so good. As we pernt out in this week’s editorial page, the Arts Center has been on the back burner for so long, it’s gone rancid. Except for when it’s used as a prop for a political speech or press conference, nothing much has changed at the Center Street site since about 2012.
The pandemic windfall was gonna change that. Now, however, we have a change in plan, and not for good reason, but still another reason to halt any progress. The money has to be used for some other projects that need cash flow now, and come under the parameters of the grant’s use. Sooooo, like mature adults that’s probably what’s gonna happen. Meanwhile, one wonders what shape the ancient building on Center Street is like now, and whether it is getting weakened by the elements.
It’s jest amazing in this burg that things that are announced, and plans that are ballyhooed never seem to get done in a timely fashion, not ever, never. We’ve been talking about the Arts Center since at least GW Bush’s foist term, and stuff was done in his second. Yew can count the number of years, then nothing’s been done on three hands.
Our editorial writer was right. Yew gotta think of things in geologic time when it comes to our fair corenr of the universe.
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Pertinent to what we discussed in our last missive, there seems to be a sense of disillusionment amongst the politicos of our city, especially longtime members of the political class. One wonders effen a sea change of people will be happening come the municipal election this year. Iva Lootey noted that much of the angst comes from the fack that city boards, commissions and the City Council itself, are little more than rubber stamps for the Municipal Accountability Review Board (MARB), and to sit through meetings where decisions are already made is very depressing.
Iva seems to think that some well known politicos might decide they’ve had enuff of the in-fighting over nothing and go back to jest being part of the taxpaying public. Life is too short to spend at meetings where stuff can’t get done and decisions are made by outsiders.
We shall see, but Iva is convinced that a big change is in the wind. There is good reason to believe the thoid floor might see a change as Herronner may or may not run for a fourth term, and effen that happens the whole “election cycle” can be like the herding of cats.
With three factions of the Demmies still extant and some in-fighting amongst the GOP, it could be quite an election season, and something yew and I haven’t seen since the 1980s. We shall see. But as the winter wanes things might become clearer. By the end of the budget season, we might know how things shake out.
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Speaking of the Budget Season, as we move through January the process has begun anew, we are told. Usually by this time the Department heads have put together their wish list or budget outlines – for example, the Board of Education jest approved $89.9 million proposed by Superintendent Neil Cavallaro. And, as per usual the Board of Finance will hafta look at everything before the thoid floor even begins to put together some type of budget plan. And with MARB have control of the budget apparatus, that adds yet another step in the process.
By March all will be ready and we’ll know what fiction our leaders have come up with. Then we go through the whole kabuki with public hearings and meetings and setch until May when the thing will be voted on, one way or t’other. Yup, here we are again.
With that bit o’ chatter, I’ll close this time till next, mitt luff und kizzez,