Budget and Cuts

Front page of the Advocate this fine Sunday mornin' talks how the board of finance cut the 3% increase for raises scheduled in July. Yesterday, the school board was talkin' the same cuts and what it would mean.
Now as a tax payer, I don't want to pay any more either, especially in this strange economy.
Why do I call it strange?
Well there is money out there, but businesses are cutting positions and others are raising prices (like at the grocery store, you notice).
The economy appears to be coming back up except of course for jobs and then there are those millions that we are giving to AIG (MY Money!) for bonuses.
So the cost of surviving has gone up (food is survival as far as I am concerned), so I can understand Unions not wanting to negotiated again. Actually when the whole thing started, they did negotiate and agreed to extend the contract another year with out anything else (at least the UAW did). This would mean that any action the city would take to reduce that would be certainly lost in arbitration.
Actually I understand, Joe Tarzia, the master mind of much of this, ranted at a city office support person (not any one with authority) for 20 minutes cause people in a completely different department had not given him info he wanted fast enough, The man has a loose screw.
I do not believe strong arming people is never the answer. The mayor negotiated with the unions and did get a simple extension. That was in good faith. Trazia's thing, however well meaning for us Taxpayers, is not.

Budget Hearings

or is it Herrings? Well Ms. brown removed the controversial $20 million waste to energy proposal, said it needed more study time, I guess. I still can not find anywhere in this country that this has worked! And someone has told me that they have been working on this for 30 or more years!
There is still the issue of the pyro-glass at the end of the process that will need disposal and how much "Fuel" will this process actually make?
Other wise one entire department (3 people) in the public works or whatever it is called now was eliminated. Sorry for any one who loses a job in this economy.
They did cut a good amount, but we still get a tax increase, UGH!

Volunteer Fire Department

Okay, I read on a post some where, that i can't find, about the mayors thing about the volunteer fire department. Couldn't understand it, don't think I believed it. Well the budget show that they were cut from $600,000+ to $30,000. He is savin' money in a bad budget year, but it seems like he only wants paid people or an I missing something? Anyone?

Stamford Hospital

Okay, I am going to get excited! I got a scoop! Stamford Hospitals plans are to extend all the way to the Mill River Park, this from someone who has seen said plans!
ANyone else?

Swimming Pool Regulations

Boy , I'm good!!
I reported about the swimming pool regulations coming on 12/12/08, is this how it should be done? Today (1/20/2009!) the Stamford Advocate finally talked about residence getting the chance to speak about it. The big issue has to do with fines being levied against home owners who do not meet the new regs. The regs are more stringent than the State Regs and may result in fanes of up to $200 per day. The article is not available on line that I can find. 7:oo PM, Monday, March 2nd.

Other news, after years of fighting it, the Health Department will be publishing inspection scores, similar to the way Farmington and Norwalk currently do. Bravo!

Malloy on FOX news

Yes, today and he did a good job of handling the commentator who was trying to get him to say all the money he was asking for was for one artificial field. Not always a fan, but when some one takes on FOX news and comes out on the high side, I will hand him a rose!

AIDS program

So the other days news was on the large cuts in the Federal and State budgets for the support network that exists for people with HIV and AIDS. The reality is that this program keep getting cut, almost every year. Those who work in the departments have made significant sacrifices every year to continue providing services and testing, intervention and prevention.
I think the saddest thing is I believe the cuts target this group of individuals because people believe that some how these people are responsible for contracting HIV and somehow deserve to get AIDS and so it is their fault and why should we support them.
In one sense they are right, there was behavior that allowed it to happen, but the other way of looking at it is that the rest of us where just plain lucky. AIDS is still not curable and is a long wasting disease that would tax resources no matter what.
The attempt at education and counseling and intervention is highly needed and this group of people is no different than any other that is targeted for discrimination.