Lincoln's Log

When I moved to Greenwich almost 10 years ago, I marveled at the low fees for golf and boating which added to the special status the town enjoyed as a place of unparalleled value.

Nowadays though, the dramatic increase in fees the last few years is about to change that value proposition. Take boating as an example. The storage fee for Greenwich Point is going up to $24 a foot. Add to that the cost of $11 a foot for hauling and launching, and we’re now approaching and soon exceeding $46 a foot which makes some of the area’s private marinas look increasingly attractive, especially when you consider they provide additional services such as water and power. Earlier this year the town also jacked up the mooring fee to $100 from $35.

Golf has a similar trajectory in Greenwich where the local municipal course now charges $25 a round on the weekend. If you choose to ride in a cart, that will be another $29 unless you can find someone to split that cost. Total cost for one round? $54. Add to that the $140 annual membership fee and we’re starting to look more like what they get at private courses in the area.

No wonder my rounds at the Griff are down considerably this year. The good news is that I have discovered many other beautiful courses in Fairfield County such as Longshore in Westport and Richter Park in Danbury. Their gain is Greenwich’s loss. My prediction is is that the Griff will record both a decline in membership fees and number of rounds in 2009.

Two weeks ago some driver slammed into the rotary in front of Perrot Library in Old Greenwich and took down all the signs. Then earlier this week, another car came down Harding Road, crossed Laddin’s Rock, plowed through the hedges in front of the library and took out the metal rails on the front steps. The car traveled at least 25 feet past the stop sign on Harding Road.

And here is the photo from the accident two weeks ago:

The Westchester County airport waiting room was its claustrophobic self on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. Virtually nowhere to sit, my colleague and I had to stand while waiting for our flight to Boston when his cell phone rang.
“A plane just hit the World Trade Center,” he said. The call came from Scott Meyer, general manager of NYTimes.com. I was COO of New York Times Digital at the time and had access to the latest news. At first, the reports were that a small plane had hit one of the towers. The news got worse very quickly after that. My colleague and I soon gave up on the idea we were flying anywhere that day, and both tried to get back to our office in Midtown. Since we had our cars at the airport, we took off – but in separate directions.
He went down the Hutchinson Parkway. I got as far as the Bronx on I-95 before hitting gridlock. It was a scene out of Blade Runner. EMTs and fire trucks were everywhere, blaring their sirens. Luckily, I was able to turn around and head back to Connecticut.
My first stop was Eastern Middle School in Riverside where I checked in on my sixth grader. I found him in the cafeteria and was relieved to see that the school was locked down and the students appeared safe.
Next, I drove to Greenwich Point.
There, on one of the clearest days of the year, I could see the two horizontal plumes of smoke extending from the burning towers to the end of Long Island – or as far as the eyes could see to the horizon. I was struck by how intact the plumes remained, instead of dispersing into the atmosphere as one might expect of smoke.
Finally, I went home to Riverside where I witnessed the day’s calamity on TV – the collapse of the towers, the attacks on the Pentagon and the plane which crashed in Pennsylvania.
I heard that President Bush was on a plane, and for the only time in my life, I feared for the safety of Dick Cheney.
The rest of the day was a blur. The extent of the attack was unclear. Fear of the unknown was the worst.
In the days following, I saw Rudy Giuliani at his best, the country rallying around the President and a national resolve to seek and hunt down the enemy.
That’s my story. Where were you on Sept. 11, 2001?

I have two recurring nightmares. The first is missing a final exam while still in college. The second is losing all my town privileges because I failed to prove my residency in Greenwich.

Is it my imagination, or are we compelled to prove our residency in more ways than required by any other municipality? It’s the virtual chastity belt around Greenwich that keeps the unwashed from Port Chester, Stamford and, God forbid, The Bronx from soiling our beaches, stealing from our schools and polluting our parks. When I applied to store my canoe at Greenwich Point, I had to prove my residency just to get on the waiting list. It didn’t seem to matter to the marine division that I already had a marine use permit, a mooring permit for my sailboat, and fees that I paid annually to store my boat, and to maintain a boat locker. So back to the house I went, in search of the CL&P bill from last month and various sundry other annoying evidence of an over-subscribed lifestyle, to sate the beast of Field Point Road.

The latest was the requirement that all incoming kindergarten and ninth graders schlepp down to the Havermeyer Building to prove they are residents before they can partake in Greenwich’s prized educational system which is struggling to best inner city schools in Bridgeport, New Haven and Hartford for bragging rights as having better Connecticut Mastery Test scores.

Then there is the library card, the membership at the Griff, tennis card, and the granddady of them all: The Greenwich Beach Card – all requiring separate proofs of residency.

I have a simple suggestion: Can’t we do this just once a year? Compile the required documents once and submit them to a single authority once and have all the agencies in the town access that data base when they need POR. Think of all the time we would save each agency and department. Think of the reduction in the chances that we misplace our auto registration, our passports every time we have to cycle those documents through the cuisinart of the multiple POR requirements.

Of course, if it were up to me, I’d dispense with the nonsense totally. My bet is that there actually are very few non-residents dying to steal our services. And even if there are some, I’d welcome the diversity.

But I’d settle for streamlining the process for now …

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