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Recessions have a way of producing some of the worst town planning decisions. Out of desperation, towns and cities allow businesses to occupy prime spaces which in ordinary times would never get approval.

An example of this is the Starbucks in Cos Cob, approved by the town even though that venue only had six parking spaces. The results were predictable: people parked on side streets and deprived other businesses of the traffic they needed to survive. Drivers frequently clogged up that busy intersection either waiting to pull into Starbucks – or trying to get out of it.

Now the same gridlock is coming to Old Greenwich, a village with even more challenging traffic patterns. OG will have its first national QSR (quick service restaurant) when Dunkin Donuts moves into the empty space on Sound Beach Avenue next to the Wells Fargo Bank and previously occupied by Patriot Bank. Now for the uninitiated, a “quick service” restaurant is exactly that – people jumping out of their cars to grab a cup of coffee or some donuts.

That’s exactly what I did every morning for 17 years when I lived in Hingham, Mass. (there were six Dunkin Donuts on my way to work, and there is no coffee better than Dunkins’ IMHO). But at least the folks in Boston insisted on enough parking and positioned all the donut stores on the right side of the streets going into Boston in the morning (the liquor stores and bars were on the other side when we came home).

Now add this wrinkle: The owners of Arcadia Cafe have applied for a wine and beer license, presumably to change that coffee shop to a full-service restaurant.

(I don’t see how we can allow Dunkin Donuts to set up shop in OG and not allow a landmark local business, Arcadia, to pursue its strategy. It would seem unfair. But if Arcadia expands, that will certainly exacerbate the traffic problem.)

Now the owners of the rising commercial building down the street next to Finesods must be watching all this with great interest. That building is being put up on spec, and as far I know, there is still no retail tenant.

And that there’s a Dunkin Donuts up the street, why not a McDonald’s down the street?

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When I was asked recently where I would like to dine on my birthday, I could think of only one restaurant in Greenwich: Homestead Inn.

Then I thought about all the restaurants in town I’ve sampled only once or twice with no desire for another visit: Gabriele’s, Nuage, Rebecca’s, Jean-Louis, L’Escale, Toscano, Lolita’s, China White, which was recently reviewed in the Greenwich Time.

To be sure, there are many nice restaurants in town, and even some unique ones. (Meli-Melo on the Ave comes to mind.) But in general, you have to go to neighboring towns to find great food and good value: Tarry Lodge in Port Chester, Napa & Co. in Stamford, Arrosto in Port Chester, Sonora in Port Chester, Aberdeen in White Plains, Tequila Mockingbird in New Canaan, Ching’s Table in New Canaan – to name a few.

The No. 1 Greenwich restaurant on Yelp is “Burgers, Shakes and Fries” in Byram. Nuf said. (No. 1 on TripAdvisor is Thomas Henkelmann – aka Homestead Inn).

No doubt, my gastronomic ennui is heavily influenced by my extensive travel to places like San Francisco, Chicago and Texas. On the rare occasion I feel like steak, there is no comparison to Gibson’s in Chicago, or Pappas Bros in Texas. I feel blessed to be able to call SF a second home. That city has attained a true culinary nirvana – and you don’t need a second mortgage to have dinner out.

Nonetheless, there are plenty of Greenwich restaurants which offer great value: Centro in Glenville, Hunan Cafe in OG, MacKenzie’s in OG, Greenwich Tavern in OG, Pasta Vera on the Ave, Boxcar Cantina on Railroad Ave … I also hear great things about Crew on Railroad Ave which I have never been … But these are generally family places … Just don’t expect Greenwich to deliver extraordinary dining experiences.

What’s your view?

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It certainly beats having the eyesore of that old, abandoned gas station occupy the south end of the village of Old Greenwich.

But now that the hulking steel frames of a new retail building is beginning to take shape, I can’t help but ponder the fallout from such a new addition.

Will there be enough parking? Will the aesthetic sensibility of a village be upset by the addition of a national retail chain? As far as I could detect, no tenant has signed up for the space, which is being built on spec. But I could easily see a Talbot’s, or a Brooks Brothers, occupying the building. That would be a shame, in my opinion. What is your opinion?

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Check out Apple’s new store at the space previously occupied by the restaurant Metrazur at Grand Central …

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The problem with gadflies is, while we know they don’t approve of the status quo, we rarely know what they stand for or what proposed solutions they hold, if any.

Gadflies are also uncomfortable working with a team, and rarely make for great leaders.

Thus, Peter Sherr will need to decide in the next 30 days whether he will make a meaningful contribution to the future of Greenwich schools or whether he will just stand on the sidelines taking pot shots for the next two years as a BOE member. Will his legacy be written as that of a gadfly or as a leader?

We have been handed this extraordinary opportunity because the Greenwich Democrats finally decided to take a stand. On Tuesday night, they said no to another year under incumbent chair Steve Anderson. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I for one am a grateful Greenwich resident, taxpayer and parent (even though I no longer have a child in the public school system). I am also a registered independent, as are a great many folks in Greenwich.

I do not interpret the Dems’ vote Tuesday night to support Leslie Moriarty as chair of the BOE as a political move in any way, even though the Townies will certainly portray it as such. Anyone who has followed the Greenwich schools closely the last four years is aware of the colossal failure of leadership under Anderson.

He had his fingerprints on two failed superintendencies. He signed documents obligating Greenwich to undertake a massive and expensive curriculum change without approval from BOE members. He withheld from the BOE, BET and the RTM cost overruns at North Mianus School which then required special actions from those bodies to pay the bills. While I am not a big fan of BOE member Nancy Kail, I do not think she should have been shut down by Anderson when she tried to making a nominating speech Tuesday night. But this is Anderson – heavy handed, dictatorial, and oblivious to the damage he has caused to our schools the last four to five years. We now have a middle school – one of only three – underperforming a school in Bridgeport, where 95 percent of the students receive free lunches because of their poverty. Greenwich High School, once the proud pillar of the community and ranked next to the country’s finest, New Trier, Whitman, is now a mediocre, run-of-the-mill place.

Those are the reasons Greenwich needs a change, not because of party lines or party beliefs. Those democrats played the game the way it was intended – true to the bipartisan intent of the school board. They voted with their GOP counterparts on many, many initiatives.

Now it’s Peter Sherr’s turn to respect that bipartisanship. If he votes to support the nomination of Leslie Moriarty, we will have a new BOE chair. If he continues to cop out (abstention), Anderson will likely return as chair. I say likely because the statutes are fuzzy on this score. It is clear that the new chair requires a “majority” of the board not just a majority of the board votes (4-3 in favor of Moriarty with the Sherr abstention). Where it gets fuzzy is that both board policy and state statute say that the selectmen (dominated by Townies) will name the new chair in the event of a tie. But a 4-3 vote with one abstention is not a “tie” in my Webster’s dictionary. The statutes do not have any provisions for what to do in that case. Will Anderson continue to be the chair in that case?

The most telling action taken by the BOE Tuesday night was not the 4-3 vote in favor of Moriarty. Rather, it was the unanimous vote to rebuff Anderson, who wanted the town fixer (AKA town attorney) John Wayne Fox to render an opinion on what constitutes a majority. That would be like asking Sonia Sotomayor to rule on the legitimacy of the Obama Health Care law. While the other two Republicans, Peter Von Braun and Barbara O’Neill, did not want to go on the record as supporting a Democrat, they had no problems voting for a non-partisan opinion of the rules. They seem to want a change as well.

Sherr should understand this. He has a huge opportunity to help bring seven motivated members of the BOE together to hire the right superintendent for Greenwich.

Will he get pilloried by some members of the RTC and Townies? Yes. But I got news for you. They are already pillorying him. So do the right thing, Peter, for the children of Greenwich.

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They are like the nerdy kids in high school who cow under the shadows of the popular kids. The popular kids in this case would be the brawny Republicans, who have run Greenwich since when Andrew Jackson was president. The local Democrats are a tentative, confused, easily intimidated lot. They are RTC wannabes who want to be invited to the right parties and hate to have to take a tough stance on anything which contradicts the ruling party.

Every two years, the DTC drags out a token candidate to run for first selectman who makes a few headlines by appearing tough. But for the most part, the Democrats who serve on the town’s two most important boards – BOE and BET – have been content to “just get along.”

Now comes the moment of truth, and it will be interesting to see if the Dems are up to the challenge. Tuesday night, they actually have a chance to take control of the BOE by electing one of their own as chair. With Republican Peter Sherr on the record as saying he will not support Steve Anderson for another term as chair, the Dems actually have enough votes to name the new chair. Not that this will be a game changer. The Democrats have never questioned Anderson in public and have supported his policies which have driven Greenwich schools to its lowest point in 20 years.

Also, the Democrats have had similar opportunities in the past but have opted to just vote for whomever the Republicans put up.

Still, any change on the BOE would be a good change at this point, even if the chair is Anderson’s chief aide-de-camp, Leslie Moriarty. If they hire the right superintendent, the Democrats can actually make the claim that they turned around Greenwich’s failing public schools. Now, wouldn’t that be something?

Carpe Diem? Or abdicate once again?

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Now that the Townies have vanquished the evil queen and returned control of the school board to the boosters eager to restore the alternative reality of Greenwich, we can all breathe a sigh of relief. No more humiliating reminders of our failings in public. The iconic Greenwich tableau – the horsey crowd sipping bubbly at one gala event after another while our children are nurtured by inspirational pedagogists who will guide them to Princeton and Yale – is back where it belongs in our psyche.

Or we can face facts: That sections of Greenwich exhibit the same characteristics as those of an Inner City. To wit, one of Greenwich’s middle schools, Western, performed worse on the 2010-2011 statewide exams than a middle school in Bridgeport. Bridgeport!

Park City School in Bridgeport, where 95 percent of the students qualified for a discounted, free lunch program and with a teacher/student ratio of 17.7, scored 532.1 for combined math and reading compared to 528.7 for Western Middle School, which is only a stone’s throw away from some of the country’s largest hedge funds.

Western has a 12-1 student/teacher ratio and about 29 percent of its students qualify for discounted, free lunches. Also, Western has a hispanic population of 28 percent while Park City is at 30 percent.

Okay, if you don’t like that comparison, how about Norwalk? Roton Middle School in Norwalk, with 43 percent of its students qualifying for discounted, free lunches and a hispanic population of 36 percent, bested Greenwich Western with a score of 536.2.

Why is all this important?

First of all, can we even agree that we have a problem? Not according to some of the boosters in Greenwich – the PTA being the worst among the cheerleaders. With the evil queen out of the way, the PTA can go back to funding irrelevant projects and holding “fund-raising” galas so more bubbly can be imbibed. Good luck with that. (How many hispanic parents at Western Middle School are in the Greenwich PTA? What outreach is there to bolster this under-represented group?) If the PTA wishes to do something truly beneficial for Greenwich school children, it should fund a two-week trip to India for every member of our school board so they can see firsthand what our next generation is up against in this global “community.”

Some of us hope there is some recognition among the new school board that Greenwich cannot continue this way. They will be selecting a new superintendent and it’s important that the new school chief be aligned with the proper goals.

So what are those goals?

For me, the solution is binary. Greenwich still has excellent programs for the gifted and the achievers, even though the previous administration attempted to dismantle it. So, protect the ALP. Protect the AP program. I assume the election of Barbara O’Neill, the longtime head of the ALP, will ensure that will happen.

The harder problem is fixing Western Middle School and the under-achieving elementary schools at the bottom. I believe this is Job One in Greenwich, although there are many, many Townies who would bristle at this strategy.

Greenwich needs to hire an educator with experience at fixing the lower end. Its impulse has been to hire someone who “understands Greenwich” – whatever that means. Sir Peter Von Braun, whose elasticity at stretching the truth should fit in well with BOE chairman Steven Anderson, actually said in his campaign that preference should be given to someone already working in Greenwich. The naiveté and ignorance of that statement are palpable.

Look no farther than the City of New Haven, which just promoted an educator who would fit the job description I outlined. Kim Johnsky is New Haven’s new director of instruction. Johnsky will be in charge of supervising, coaching and evaluating the district’s principals. Johnsky has worked at the New Haven Public Schools for 23 years, the last four as principal of Fair Haven K-8 School. She also had a stint at New Haven’s legendary Worthington Hooker School, one of the highest ranking and diverse elementary schools in Connecticut. Everywhere she’s worked, she’s elevated the performance of children in standardized tests.

There are many people like Kim Johnsky who would be the right fit for Greenwich at this time in the town’s history.

But you can’t fix a problem, unless you see the problem first …

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Sunday was the last day for boats to be hauled out at Greenwich Cove and the last day for launch service at Old Greenwich Yacht Club. I couldn’t have been more grateful for this season to end.

As if to punctuate the events of last summer, the first boat hauled out Sunday was that of an owner who was taking it to the dump because he couldn’t find a buyer, according to the dock master and hauling vendor.

Here is a photo of the boat being hauled out:

The summer started with the town wiping out most of the vendors who work on our boats by imposing a requirement for a hefty liability insurance. I had to paint my own boat bottom!

Speaking of bottoms Dave Ostler saved mine when he called me just before Irene hit in late August. I was in Maine. Dave did me a big favor and took off my sails that Saturday. The storm hit on Sunday.

Also in August, the town finally severed its relationship with longtime dock master Peter LaMorte at Greenwich Point. Everyone knew this had been brewing for some time. Pete did not exactly keep his opinions about the town administration to himself. I was surprised Pete lasted this long. When I asked Marine division chief Jeff Freidag why they had to do it in the middle of the boating season, Friedag unloaded with a torrent of unrestrained comments which I will not repeat here. But someone in the town attorney’s office would do well to give Freidag some advice about “non disparagement” and the rights of former employees. Aren’t some other departments and commissions getting similar coaching on racial tolerance?

Pete was a good dock master. He really knew boats. For instance, when the hand pump on my marine head began sticking, Pete told me to put a little cooking oil in the water to unstick it. Worked like magic. I’ll mss Pete.

Interim dockmaster Wayne Scott, who shuttles between Grass Island and OG, has done an excellent job as well. He is earnest and hard-working, even if he is a strict constructionist, which is just the way Friedag likes it apparently.

A lot of bad karma going around in the boating scene these days what with the closing of the massive Brewers Marina in Stamford. Meanwhile, Greenwich can’t even seem to name a new harbor master without drama.

Every year this time I think about not doing this ever again.

Come next spring, I’ll launch the boat … and it will again be my happiest day of the year.