I go to many meetings and know many things that I have no obligation to report on. I just write a weekly 700-word column. I attend many meetings just to help me write a more informed column.

I try not to write columns based solely on what I read in the newspaper, and I try to be timely with my choice of subject for this column each week.

And this week I plan to write about the housing task force report that was officially presented last night to the First Selectman at a meeting attended by all three Selectmen as well as P&Z members and staff.

It’s not my job to report on the meeting. I will talk about the meeting and the content of the report in this Sunday’s column that I am now in the process of writing.

In Greenwich we can say we are different and can do it our own way, ignoring or even priding ourselves in the fact that no other Town can provide this service.

But the long-term financial consequences of this vote will return to impact future budgets. There is a cost for everything.

Like many speakers, my own mother benefited from the present of this fine facility before she died. But the emotions and memories of 100 years of this special institution cannot overcome the financial realities of the need to set priorities for limited government.

I have consulted with John McKee, superintendent of the waste disposal and recycling division of DPW. Although the town does not get involved in what haulers charge customers, almost all of the haulers have said they are not raising prices for customers who accept the swap of one trash collection day for a recycling day as they are picking up the same material they always have, only in a different combination, with much more recycled material than garbage.

Customers who do not accept garbage pick-up only one day a week, and want a second day in addition to the recycling day, should be prepared to pay more for this extra collection day (although this collection should not be needed).

The town does not require a new container for the recyclables, although the Toter style wheeled container (retail about $110 from the manufacturer) is recommended. But whatever container is used, it should have a lid.

You should ask your hauler what the extra charge is for. If the answer is not acceptable, you should shop around for a different hauler. It is a free market situation with lots of competition. There is a list of haulers on the town’s website.

Hope this helps.

Alma

Mrs. Teal is my grandmother and it is a delight to read your personal recollection of her home-based one-room school, about which we have heard few details! She later taught English for years at a school in Westport, CT, then retired to live with daughter Ann in New Canaan, passing away in approx. 1972.

It would be wonderful to hear memories of other students of Mrs. Teal’s Classes.

Best, P. Teal

“That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776 (The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America)

This “quibbling” is really a very basic democratic debate about consent, or lack of it from District 7, to our First Selectman presenting us with a 5 percent budget increase, when the Town Meeting majority asked for restraint.

Who is playing word games with “austere?” Restraint means “restraint.”

The budget presentation with all the Town Department heads looking on (and signing on, literally) was more in tune with profligate expansionism and protectionism for Town Hall job and office holders.

“The RTM has final power to cut, or eliminate, anything in the budget. ”

RTM can be like Congress: Approve any bill, support motherhood and apple pie. Just don’t fund it.

RTM members were actually out in force at CIP Tuesday and FECB Thursday (just to add some arcane acronyms to your piece).

RTM District 7 has built as bonfire tower.

The match is lit.

I am writing in response to both Alma Rutgers’ opinion piece and the editorial in Sunday’s Greenwich Time concerning the Sense of the Meeting resolution before the RTM on Monday, October 25, 2010, based on the “Background for 2011-2010 Greenwich Budget” (the “Budget Report”) prepared by Lucia Jansen and others in District of the RTM.. The editorial, and Ms. Rutgers’ piece both seem troubled by the resolution and caution against any sort of “across the board” cutting of spending.
I don’t think that anyone wants to be “Cutting for the sake of feeling good about lowering taxes” as one Finance Committee alternate put it.

To put the Sense of the Meeting Resolution and the Budget Report in perspective, I think that the Budget Report’s principle point about just how much spending has grown in real terms over the past 40 years combines with the frustration many on the RTM, and many taxpayers, feel, that much of what the Town spends, including on schools, is beyond our control or ability to influence (except to increase it).

And, truth to tell, the Town does not have the same level of control over how we spend money as we did 40 years ago – with federal and state mandates to provide certain services (often unfunded or only partially funded), union contracts with enforced arbitration, and increasing regulatory burdens on government and citizens generally.
Contrast the financial situation with a household, or a private business: if income (revenue) falls, spending has to fall. It may be sustained in the short, even the medium, run, using cash flow from savings or borrowing. Eventually, however, if income cannot be restored to former levels, the household or firm must choose between voluntary cuts and involuntary cuts made in the context of a bankruptcy.

No one in the household or the firm wants to significantly cut spending, which will result in lowered standards of living, loss of jobs, etc. But, like it or not it happens.
As we look at the budget history in light of the Budget Report, I think the largest lesson is that our Town household (or firm if you prefer) may well not be in as good order as we have thought it was. We have been like frogs in water that’s heating so slowly that we haven’t noticed it’s moved from cool to rather warm on its way to a boil. But, the Budget Report is a wake-up call to let us know that it’s not cool anymore.

Surely, it’s true that Greenwich has relatively lower taxes – especially for the level of service – than most communities. We’re not at the point – yet – of having to make drastic cuts in service levels that will have a decided negative effect on the quality of life in Greenwich, or even at the point of having to choose between significantly higher taxes and deep service cuts.
Can we continue more or less as we’ve done over the past 40-odd years with annual increases in real terms and increasing levels of service? We could probably do it for a while yet. Kick the can down the road, as the state and federal governments are wont to do, and Greenwich has with respect to capital spending. Worse, if we continue in this mode, unless we are prepared to pay significantly higher taxes, we will devote an increasing portion of the budget to personnel and pension costs, and a decreasing portion to infrastructure and capital projects.

Now, however, beginning with the Sense of the Meeting Resolution, as amended, we have the opportunity to begin to change the culture of increasing spending and the notion that more money is always the answer to our problems before our backs are against the wall, so we never get to the point where the choices about services and taxes will be made by others.

As we look at these problems, the most frustrating thing is how reasonable every Town official and Board of Education member sounds as they stand up before us to explain how their hands are tied in dealing with (primarily) personnel costs and mandates. It feels like we are dealing with zugzwang: there is no move we can make that will improve the situation, but we have to move nevertheless.

I cannot speak for anyone else, but I believe that unless we approach our cost structure “outside of the box” we will never have a significant positive effect on bringing spending, and thus taxes, under control.

What becomes clear in listening to Town and Board of Education officials is that the ONLY power that the RTM actually has to restrain spending is the power of the purse – that is, the power to say NO. No matter how hard we negotiate, under current Connecticut law, we simply cannot prevent our labor costs from increasing every year. Even rejecting a contract after arbitration will only lead to a further arbitration unlikely to result in no increase in spending.

The only thing the RTM has the power to do in that regard, and which the RTM legally has the power to do, is to refuse to appropriate more money for any given item (or overall) than we did the previous year, or to actually reduce the amount we appropriate.

It is the sense of zugzwang that leads one to think about, and even to talk about, real ‘meat axe’ approaches like freezing spending or across the board cuts. When the ways to change a situation that seems out of control are limited, the alternatives are to give up, or to use the tools you have to exert control.

Town and Board of Education officials, your editorialist, and writers like Ms. Rutgers, always ask those opposed to increasing taxes just what do you want to cut. The reason they prefer to address the situation that way, is that each individual appropriation has its constituency, who will turn out in force to preserve it. Previously, few have been is prepared to speak for the taxpayers as a whole, or to set priorities, or to say, as you would in your own business or household: “we don’t have as much money as we did last year, there is no alternative to reducing spending other than insolvency.”

Beyond that, I agree with John Blankley and others that it is absolutely imperative to understand the components of increased real spending, and to try to understand, if only intuitively, whether we’re getting increased value for our money. My own sense, entirely based on my experiences and anecdotal evidence, is that in some areas we are, others not.
Let’s find out. And, the way to begin the process is the Sense of the Meeting Resolution offered by District 7, as amended.

The Jansen analysis can be found at http://www.freewebs.com/rtmdistrct7/PDF%20Final%20Report.pdf

The RTM Land Use 21 Questions are at: http://bit.ly/9eIo2v

One does not need a crystal ball to see that we are at a critical time and point of decision going forward as to where we are going and what sort of community we want to transform ourselves into.

This requires VISION, and that requires PLANNING. Do we have that here?

Do we have the capacity for it and the courage to face the TRUTH?

1. When is a decision or simple up/down vote by a commissioner of zoning protected as an act of a Town official?

2. When do acts of a sitting commissioner in a public session go beyond the office entrusted to him by his appointment as a volunteer, and open legal liabilities for himself and his family?

3. When is a commission entitled to act and decide matters behind closed doors?

4. When and how is the Town served by its commissioners folding at the first sign of legal heat, by threatening mass default (or a vote re-do)?

5. What options do the Courts have to stop frivolous personal lawsuits against Town officials acting in good faith in an official capacity?

There are important answers to these questions, but they need to be brought into public discussion. Perhaps you will consider them for your column.

Thank you for the correction. I know that it is” Acts 17 Apologetics.” This was a typographical omission of the “1″ in “17.” I had the correct name in my earlier August 4 blog posting on the subject,Cordoba House and the American Way, if you care to look it up.

Otherwise, I stand by my comments.

Alma

Rauf is not the model of tolerance and moderation he’s being portrayed to be. But neither (it appears) is he really the driving force behind this mosque, so the focus on him is somewhat misdirected.

And the mosque itself (sorry, “community center”) is not designed to promote interfaith understanding. It was quite clearly designed to insult and affront, which is why people of good will dropped out of the program as it became clear what the true motives were. The world will not admire us for bending over and allowing a mockery to be made of the sacrifices at Ground Zero. Honest.

Finally, there is no such organization as “Acts 7 Apologetics.” The group’s name is “Acts 17 Apologetics,” so if you’re going to condemn them, at least get their name right. They may be a bunch of religious kooks, and to be honest I thought that video was misleading and overly alarmist in many ways, but I think you’re basing your judgment of them on less than all the facts.

Respectfully,

Jan

Great to hear about you continuing the trips to Israel.

Patricia and I are now in Andover, MA, where I pastor the Ballard Vale United Church. Patricia teaches at Simmons College.

I got your blog by Googling to see if my web site is up: I just did a CD of my music.

Best,
Ed Deyton

great job!

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Diane-Garnick/188133090053

These changes will render the proposed site plan invalid, unless permits are issued before the implementation date. However, the site plan does not conform to DEP’s Coastal regulations, and DEP’s permitting process will control. This alone makes passage inadvisable tomorrow evening.

Regarding affordable housing, the P&Z proposed regulation changes removes two-family houses and single-to-two family conversions in the R-6 zone as a permitted use. This will enormously impact and diminish
the opportunity to add affordable housing units to properties in the R-6 zone, where there is present build-out potential.

Therefore, both the Power Plant park site plan and the R-6 change should be delayed until the affordable housing mandate is addressed by the Town.

As always great blog. Have a great trip and I am looking forward to reading all about it.