Is spring here? Can Cobina finally turn the furnace down fer the season? With the window be open soon? Stay tuned, honey bunch. Like I said to yew last week or so, we’re getting our annual reminder of what “cooler by the shore” means. Heck whilst it was in the mid-60s elsewhere, it was barely 50 hereabouts over the weekend, and the fog and wind made it a lot cooler fer these old bones. Also, yores truly’s hay fever has been kickin’ up cuz of all this rain. It seems like we’ve had nuthin’ but snow or rain every few days fer more than three months.
Tennyrate, here in God’s Li’l Acre things have been moving apace with the City Council getting ready to pass its annual budget ordinance by Thursday eventide. The boys and girls have been workin’ hard since the budget was foist announced in March, and the “budget cycle” comes to an end with the passage of the ordinance.
We shall see what transpires. The Municipal Accountability Review Board (MARB) is lookin’ fer “structural changes” in the way the city budgets and spends. We shall see what remedies the council has come up with – if any. Lawd knows that over the years, the council has kicked the can down the road even when knowing things are amiss, all because of the nine-vote minimum needed to pass alterations.
All that might be changed, but that’s the topic to be covered later. We have to do things under the present rules o’ the game, and that means that effen the council didn’t git the nine votes, we could be in a bit of a quandary.
The MARB is looking for cuts and tax hikes if necessary, including a “supplemental tax.” We’ve already seen one o’ those with the January tax that went out for cars. Effen there is another one, there might be a whole lotta screaming and yelling from Jane and John Q.
Well, we’ll know this afternoon what was decided and what is gonna happen next. As has happened over the last couple o’ decades, For Sale signs have sprung up like mushrooms after a summer rain around the berg. People are lookin’ to get out, but one wonders effen they market is setch they can even sell their domiciles.
Then again, the problem ain’t jest here. It’s with the whole state.
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Cobina received a note from John Carrano, Demmie on the Charter Revision Commish, who took exception to Cobina’s statement that Ed Granfield being elected chairman of the body was a product of the factionalism in the majority organization.
Carrano sez he was elected pure and simple cuz he was the best candidate. Cobina don’t disagree with that. What Carrano don’t see is that both statements can be true: he was elected cuz of the factionalism, and he is the best candidate.
Anyone who knows the political history o’ this Asylum by the Sea knows that whether a D or R was after one’s name played a bit role in how one was treated. We don’t hafta look to far concerning that. Does anyone remember the hue and cry that happened when Anne Granfield was named Finance Director? She was a Dem, but because Ed was an R, there was a terrible, horrible, vile backlash. The result was that Anne Granfield left the position and went back to the corporate world.
Granfield was being courted by all sides in the lead up to the Charter Revision empanelment. Sammy Bluejay knew this and told us about it at the time. So, let’s not kid ourselves. It was a win-win for the city cuz for the first time in anyone’s mem’ry someone was actually picked for a position cuz he was the most qualified, and because the factions in the party recognized they wouldn’t be able to get a functional commish effen they didn’t go that way.
The interesting thing is that in getting Granfield, they have put in a person that has already let it be known that he’s taking names effen there is any hanky-panky going on or attempted. We’ve known him for quite a while. I wouldn’t test him effen I was the local yokels.
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Meanwhile, the public hearing was held and Sammy was there perched outside. The Charter Revision Commission got perty much what was expected: addresses from Council Chairman Ron Quagliani and herroner on things they’d like to see (i.e. the budget), and had a few other comments from the gen’ral public. In all the thing took about an hour gavel to gavel.
Sammy sez thing committee tho’ seems on the right track and we might git some real discussions on things that matter. I hear-tell the lack of a real corporation counsel (herroner hasn’t hired a permanent one yet), might be a problem as legal opinions might be something the commish might need from time to time.
As things get movin’ I’ll keep you up to speed.
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Nelly Nuthatch sez that traffic in the morning at WHHS is a bit of a comedy of errors now that the main drag betwixt the school and the parking lot has been fenced off whilst construction goes on. There is some rerouting, but seeing people negotiate – including bus drivers – the temporary set up is quite comical. Our own editor happened by there on his jog recently and sez that people seem a bit perplexed by the whole thing.
Iyam sure they’ll git used to it, but until then, there are some gaping eyes and gaping mouths when they see the cluster of activity that is trying to work itself around the building.
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Speaking of the schools, I don’t mean to harp, but our idea of axing the coordinators seems to be falling on a certain member of the staff at the high school. Jest cuz Cobina mentioned it, there seems to be a consensus that we’re getting it from certain quarters on the staff.
Actually, our own editor was looking at the budget expenditures one day and wondered why setch a small school system is spending sooooo much on middle management. That’s the genesis of setch talk, and while he might be friendly with more than a few of the magisterial classes in the building, he does think on his own from occasion to occasion.
Needless to say, the accusation that he’s being fed this stuff, or that Cobina is mimicking the thoughts of others after conversations with our editor is nonsense. But, we’re dealing with individuals who don’t think on their own and believe others can’t do the same, either.
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One more week, one more week of noticing that nothing is happening on Beach Street: still boarded up buildings, vacant lots and empty restaurants. Here is the second best beach area in the city – and an entrance to the shore much like it was when the amusement park was around – and nobody seems interested in getting things built or opened over there. As Gilbert & Sullivan might say, “Tis a puzzlement.”
With that bit o’ chatter, I’ll close this time till next, mitt luff und kizzez,