Getting involved in Greenwich

I reviewed Jane Condon’s one-woman show back in May, you can read that review, very favorable, here. The show was running in a small theater in New York City at the time, but it’s coming to the Avon Theater in Stamford and you should jump on the opportunity to go see it locally.

As is usually the case, Jane is doing a benefit.  This time for the Juvenile Bipolar Research Foundation.  It’s Monday, November 15th @ 6:30 and only $50 & $75.  Don’t miss it.

Get your tickets here. http://jbrf.org/janie.html

The RTM passed the spending restraint resolution on Monday and on Tuesday people were lining up to get their expensive capital projects funded.  It’s going to be interesting to see if the RTM actually says no to something.  The high school auditorium is a good place to start.  Tens of millions of dollars for an auditorium is ridiculous, it’s been fine since 1973, why is it no longer acceptable? 

The endless 3% tax increases are, arguably, good because they seem to be lower than neighboring towns but they are unsustainable.  This translates to a 10 or 12% increase every three years and on and on and on it goes. 

I don’t believe most people in town want the auditorium.  I believe most people who show up to the meetings want it, but there’s that silent majority who doens’t have time to go to meetings.  Hopefully, the RTM has spoken for the silent majority with their sense-of-the-meeting resolution but we’ll need to see.  If the RTM really wants to make a statement, pick a few items and say “we’re not approving these in May.”  Hopefully, the auditorium will be one of them.  That would send a real message.

My prediction, the auditorium will be built, the mill rate will go up another 3.5% this year, and next year and the year after that.

The headline (see it here) was “State gets $121 million for New Haven to Springfield line.”  But read the article, the total tab for the high-speed train from New Haven to Springfield is $880 million.  Those trains will alleviate traffic on I-91, which runs the length of the New Haven-Springfield trip.  I-91, the road they’ve already spent millions to improve and widen over the years.  Just drive up it, everywhere you see sound barriers is a spot they’ve improved the road.  

They say this will take up to 4,000 cars/day off the road.  Sounds like a big number, it’s not.  To put it in perspective, the CT Transportation Strategy Board’s Toll Study (2009) estimated that if they put a toll on I-95 at the CT/NY border, 14,000 cars/day would “divert” through Byram and Port Chester’s local streets.  $880 million to take 4,000 cars/day off the road.  And of course we know that it won’t take nearly that many and the estimate is likely over-optimistic.

I-95 Traffic

Here in lower Fairfield County, the piggy bank that supports the entire State of Connecticut, aside from the silly ramp extensions in Stamford, we haven’t seen any improvements to our traffic infrastructure since I-95 was built in 1958.  Traffic in lower Fairfield is much, much worse than in northern Connecticut.

But we can’t really build something as sexy as a high-speed rail in Fairfield, so another $120 million will go to build it where no one really needs it.  $880 million.

Rest assured you’ll be seeing the toll proposal on the table again soon so Hartford can pay for the Connecticut-committed portion of this high-speed folly.

Back in around 2002-3 when Greenwich was changing the beach access rules because of the court case we lost, one RTM member (me) was fighting to ensure that Byram Beach didn’t sell passes at the gate because I feared it would be very inviting to non-residents who could park in downtown Byram or just take the bus – there’s a bus stop right at the Byram Park entrance.  Our Byram delegation signed a letter to the editor that was printed explaining this concern and thanks to Dick Bergstresser and Peter Crumbine, the same rules (buy your passes at Town Hall) were implemented for Byram as were for Tod’s Point.  

The letter to the editor prompted a nasty response from a Port Chester Councilman who blathered on about how snobby we are in Greenwich, how we have no right to keep others out, and even how our beaches were sub-par.  He invited Greenwich residents to visit Rye Town Beach, where everyone is welcome for the same low price (then $5).  

Rye Town Beach

Well, fast forward to 2010.  I don’t think this was reported in the Greenwich papers, but Port Chester/Rye now charges different (higher) prices for non-residents.  Here’s a favorite quote from the April 18, 2010 article in the Rye Patch, (full article here):

More than 150 area residents came to voice their concerns to the Commission, essentially saying: “We want our park and beach back.”

Their emphasis was on the “our,” that “our” constituting the estimated 60,000 residents of Rye City, Port Chester, Rye Brook and Rye Neck who make up the constituency that pays the taxes that support the park.

Sound familiar ?  And by the way, it’s now $20 to park at their beach on weekends.  They actually call it “the Greenwich model.”  Also, they took away parking on the big lawn in Rye Town Park, eliminating parking for 250 cars.  

A subject for another blog post is how we should not have been surprised that when Port Chester/Rye raised their prices, Greenwich beaches pricing became more attractive.

At least we no longer have to face obnoxious criticism of our beach access policies from Port Chester politicians.

Another “blocking” fire truck was hit and severely damaged on I-95 this week.  Read the article here.  This one was Stamford’s, and it cost $360,000 new a few years ago.  Greenwich similarly lost a fire truck a few years ago, I remember because I was on RTM at the time and had to vote to fund the repairs.  I’m pretty sure I wrote a letter to the editor about it too.  Here’s the deal: when there’s an accident on I-95 the responding fire department brings an extra large truck and parks it up-highway from the accident to protect the ambulance, police and other responding firemen from being hit by a driver who isn’t paying attention plowing into the accident scene.  This time, it was a tractor-trailer. 

At the time of the Greenwich fire track crash, one of our state legislators, I believe it was Sen. Nickerson (forgive me if it was someone else) asked the state to buy Greenwich a large truck, it didn’t have to be a fire truck, that we could use as a “blocking” vehicle.  The state never agreed to buy us this vehicle.  I figure you could buy a suitable used garbage truck or dump truck, driveable but not necessarily with all equipment working, for less than $10,000.  Maybe even load it with sandbags or  something to make it a really effective “blocker.”  This would seem a no-brainer unless you’re talking about Connecticut, where we have no problem wasting money.  Not to mention the detriment to public safety caused by a fire truck being taken out of service.

Come on ladies and gentlmen representing us in Hartford, fix this issue right now.

A print-only article in Sunday’s paper reminded me about something that’s bothered me for a while but, until now, I’ve never seen discussed.  In opening up the beaches and ferries to non-residents, we’ve made it more difficult for residents to enjoy our beaches.  Rick Novakowski called for, among other things,  allowing residents to buy guest passes at the dock and give residents first crack at reserving grills on Island Beach. 

Here’s how great it used to be:

Back in the day, you could drive up to Greenwich Point and leave your out-of-town freind’s name at the gate, they could drive up, pay the guest fee, and drive their car into the beach to meet you at,  say, the Point for a barbeque. 

Up to just a few years ago you could leave up to 12 non-resident friends’ names at Island Beach Dock and those people could just walk up, buy their guest passes, and come on over to join you on whatever boat made it.  No charge for parking for those guests either.

Now residents have to go through the annoying process of buying passes at Town Hall, etc., and pay the expensive parking fees for our guests if we want to have someone to a picnic at the Point.   So if you want to bring a couple of families to join your family at the point it now costs $40 for them to park +  another $40 for people passes.  Not really worth having a dinner picnics at the Point any more.  So we’ve basically lost that amenity. 

Something should be done to accomodate residents who wish to bring guests.  The court said we have to let nonresidents in to exercise their free speech.  I don’t see how ruining the beaches for residents with out-of-town friends was necessary. 

And if the grills are in short supply I think they should be resident-only.  Period.  How does a grill help someone exercise their free speech? 

I hope people will chime in with comments on this.

A Stamford resident recently commented to one of my blog posts about the pricing of access for non-residents to our beaches.  Another Stamford resident (quite possibly the same person, because the points raised were very similar) wrote a letter to the editor on the same topic.  I’d like to examine some of the points raised, this isn’t the first time I’ve heard them.

In both the comment and the letter to the editor the Stamford resident indicated they would be re-thinking their shopping in Greenwich because of our beach access attitude.

First, the letter writer referred to the $20 parking fee as “unreasonable.”  That’s exactly what Stamford charges to park.  

Also worth noting is that Stamford, just like Greenwich, had a history of not allowing non-residents to use their beaches.  Prior to the infamous Stamford resident suit against Greenwich, Stamford would not allow non-residents to park in their beaches.  Oh, you could walk in, but you couldn’t park there.  And forget parking just outside the beach and walking in, the neighborhoods all had their own parking permits.  Unlike Greenwich, however, Stamford took Federal funds for beach cleanup after storms.  And “opened” their beaches to non-residents as long as they could walk from, say, the Stamford train station over to the beach.  

Yes, yes, yes our policies are designed to regulate the non-resident visitors.   The only reason visitors are allowed in at all is to exercise their free speech.  That was the court ruling.  It’s the same reason Stamford changed their regulations and now allows non-residents to park.  

I’m sorry the letter writer won’t be spending any more money here.  I know I shop a lot in Stamford because there are still stores there (e.g., Target, Macy’s) that you can’t find in Greenwich.  I’m betting a lot more Greenwich residents shop in Stamford than vice versa.  It would be a shame if we all stopped shopping in Stamford because of Stamford’s unreasonable beach parking fee and the fact that, for years, I could never visit Stamford’s beach unless I drove in with a resident (Greenwich used to allow guests to bring in their cars, for free).

Stamford didn’t want non-residents using their beaches any more than Greenwich did so please stop bashing Greenwich.  It’s getting old.

The Town website announcement about late tax bills (linked here) and the newspaper articles about it (here) mentioned that “paper bills” were going or went out late.  I don’t think everyone knows what that means, so I called the Tax Collector’s office to find out.  It’s good news for most of us. 

 I was very concerned about the tax bill because, while I’m sure I could get the check in the mail with only 1 day’s notice if I had to, my mortgage servicer probably could not.  Would I be liable if they didn’t make the payment reasonably expeditiously? (That’s the regulatory term, pretty sure that doesn’t mean they have to do it in a few days.)

According to the person I spoke with at the Tax Collector’s office, the major mortgage servicers get the tax bills electronically, and those went to them on July 6^th.  The smaller, local banks that don’t get electronic bills got those mailed July 6^th and 7^th.  

Sounds like most of us, who have mortgages and mortgage servicers paying our tax bills, have nothing to worry about.  

It probably would have made sense for the notices to and press articles to mention this, since it basically says 90% of us have nothing to worry about.  

 Oh well, all five of my readers now know.