On Fire Service Awards

So much for open government. Having heard that tonight's End of Year Meeting will not allow for public comments on the Fire Service Award program, I will voice my comments here.

I originally had this comment towards the end of this writing, but I suppose I'll put it up front, in the hopes of tempering any anger my opinion might produce.

With my comments, I am in no way saying that volunteer firefighting isn't a good thing. It's a noble cause and should be genuinely recognized as such. Given the limited information I've garnered, a service award isn't the right way to do it. Not for this Town and not in this Time.

From the minutes: "to do away with the program, once it is approved by the voters, it would take another voter referendum, and any changes to the program must also go to a referendum, except for increases or decreases in membership, which is just funded by the annual Town
Budget with either an tax increase or a budget surplus."

Ok - so once it's in place, it'll be in place forever. If the membership rolls rocket up and nearly double from 44 members to 75 (the maximum), the Town - YOU - will pay for it.

Will this program be a carrot with which to attract and retain fire company members? Let's step back a bit and ask the question, does the town have a problem attracting and retaining members? If that's the case, could the Fire Company take some intermediate steps to recruit members?

I'm not great with numbers, so I won't even try to put in numerical terms how many hundreds and hundreds of thousands of Town dollars this program will cost you, your children and your grandchildren. What I will say is that the United States is facing the worst economic downturn in the history of history, and 2009 will not be a good year, financially, for most people. Layoffs and furloughs are already happening. There are entire industries that will not around at the end of 2009. There are people who have jobs today who will not have jobs in a month. I hope I'm wrong, but there are economic indicators that are saying I'm being too optimistic.

The Town of Sardinia is sitting on a literal gold mine with its reserve capital, and to expend those funds into something that will have next-to-zero economic benefit for the town and its people is reckless and wrong. It's wrong. We should be taking some of those ideas from the community meeting in November to figure out how to support local business, energize individual people to invest in the Town, and to muddle through what promises to be a wild economic ride in the near-future. How can we make those dollars work so that a one-dollar expenditure from the reserves produces a three-fold or ten-fold economic benefit? I honestly don't care that this program has been researched for a year or ten years. An ill-conceived notion is still ill-conceived.

I will continue.

The previous public "hearing" on the Award Program consisted of a Fourth-of-July-weekend meeting where, according to the minutes, the only people in attendance were:

Present:
Councilman Ann M. Bean
Councilman Heather M. Phelps
Councilman Norman J. Uhteg
Supervisor Kathleen M. Balus
Absent:
Councilman Ronald L. Kenyon
Also Present:
Damien Ulatowski of Firefighters Benefit & Insurance Services
Donald Brooks of Tomkins Insurance Agencies
Town Clerk Betsy A. Marsh
9 Fire Company Members

An informational meeting consisting of elected officials (including 2 who will directly benefit from this program) + insurance agents (who will directly benefit from this program) + fire company members (who will directly benefit from this program) might equal a fair and open hearing in some alternative universe, or maybe in Stalinist Russia, but not in Sardinia in 2008. Setting aside, for a moment, the General Municipal Law that says it's ok for board members with a financial stake in an Award Program to vote on it, does anyone else see something wrong with this? Just because something is legal doesn't make it right.

A special election for this referendum will cost the Town money. That on its own is not a reason to not have a referendum, but it should make us sit back and consider holding it until the regular November election.

To conclude, questions that should be considered and answered.
- Is the Fire Company willing to have a portion of their financial reserves applied to this program?
- Where is a public record of the Fire Company's finances? Has one been done?
- Does the Town or the Fire Company have projections for membership over the next 10-20 years?
- Has the Town set an "entitlement age" (between 55 and 65 years)? How will this affect membership and payment projections?
- Are service award payments considered taxable income?
- Will the "point system" be audited by any external source? Will that be paid for by the Town? Or will fire fighters self-report their "points"?
- What payments can sitting board members (or their families) expect to receive?

I concede that there are other questions that should be asked. I expect none of these questions to be answered tonight. I expect all of them to be answered by the time a referendum is held.

A "Thinking" Site

My response to the comment on December 29, 2008 6:41 PM

I agreed with the tone and content of this comment much more than the previous anonymous comment, so I will be more friendly in my response. Again, my playground.

I don't plan to "yank" any submitted content. I haven't so far! I may choose not to post things that are emailed to me. I may choose to mock and refute comments. But I think I'd only "yank" something that is abusive, threatening, or posted in error.

To hear that this is a "thinking" site - that's flattering! I'd just have a minor quibble that there are two sides to every issue - I tend to think that there are many more than two sides, and none is perfect. I think if the "two sides" actually came together more often, they'd find that they had more in common than they realize.

My Playground, My Rules, and Ad Hominem Arguments

My response to the comments from December 29, 2008 12:55 PM

I do control the subject matter on this blog; I was actually "in" to blogs as early as 2002, and it was the focus of my master's thesis, so I take the editorial control of this site quite seriously. And since it's my playground, we play by my rules. I absolutely invite external input, but with some strong caveats. If a person wants to say something, the main way to be taken seriously is to attach one's name to those opinions. I'm not going to open this site up to anonymous screeds (in the main blog posts). I'm not going to permit anonymous attacks.

Let's pause, for a second, to discuss what an Ad Homimen argument is. Wikipedia aptly defines such an argument as:

attacking or appealing to a characteristic or belief of the person making the argument or claim, rather than by addressing the substance of the argument or producing evidence against the claim.

The assertion I have a "Johnny come lately" attitude seems, on its face, to be a classic (anonymous) Ad Hominem argument. Rather than having to mount up (anonymous) rationales as to why I'm wrong, it's so much easier to just claim that I haven't been around, so my opinions count for nothing. When left unrecognized, Ad Hominem arguments can be quite effective. I'd like to turn that (anonymous) argument around by saying, there is no better way to stifle the involvement of individuals in a community than to say "you haven't been around, so don't even bother." I sincerely hope that is not your (anonymous) intent.

As for my writing style, including referring to Springville as the 'Ville - how in the name of grilled cheese could that leave anyone on edge? My comment that I wish I had taken notes on the community forum - it IS as if it never happened. We're 2 months out and the only idea that's being acted on for Sardinia's funding reserves is the Fire Service Award (more on that later).

Frankly, anonymous comments like yours, Mr. or Mrs. Anonymous, make me on edge.

Vegetables and more for the Sardinia Food Bank

On the food pantry front: the message on the Springville Concord Community Care Food Pantry says they'll be back on January 2, so I hope to get more specific info from them in the new year.

The Sardinia Food Bank at the Baptist Church is in need of canned vegetables - peas, green beans, baked beans - plus items like hamburger helper and spaghetti-o's (which, really, are kind of gross, but they do taste delicious).

The Trading Post in the 'Ville is always looking for baby formula, baby food, canned goods, boxed pasta.

Since our family came home a bit earlier than I thought, I plan to be at tomorrow night's end-of-year meeting at 7 p.m. (December 30). I'll have a bin or two with me for food collection as an early toe-in-the-water to see what the response will be. With the holidays and all, I'm not sure how many people will be attending! Right now I'm off to the store to pick up some groceries!

Any ideas about the community forum ideas?

Does anyone know when and how the ideas brought up in November's community forum will be released? I wish I'd taken notes. We're 6 weeks past the meeting and it's as if it never happened. 

Southtowns Agriculture

The Buffalo News had a story in the City & Region section about agricultural tourism in the Southtowns, specifically, Brant, Evans, Eden, and North Collins.

With a $10,000 federal grant and help from the University at Buffalo Regional Institute, the Southtowns Agribusiness project is looking for ways the rural region could boost revenue and jobs. . . . The project is funded by the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education program, an arm of the U. S. Department of Agriculture.

I did a bit of googling, and found the Partnering for Tourism in the Southtowns of Erie County Project web site. They released at "toolkit" (huge file! - 9 MB and 70+ pages) in 2007 as a result of research and surveys. It's quite an interesting read for anyone interested in agriculture and development.

This made me think of the "localvore" movement, and what could be done to encourage more consumption of food from local sources. For our part, I want to expand our garden in the spring, and go for a summer without a plague of Japanese beetles eating all our plants' leaves!

Food at Board Meetings?

Seeing over 50 residents at the town board meetings I've attended is quite encouraging. As a wild idea, would anyone join me in using those events to collect food for local food banks? If each attendee brought a few cans or boxes, the total would be quite a haul. I've heard there's a food bank in Arcade, and I know there are at least two in Springville - the Springville Concord Community Pantry and the Trading Post. The Town could alternate donations each month between the food banks, or just split each month's collection to send to each place.

The global economic crisis is continuing to hit hard locally. There are families and individuals struggling, and that need will continue well into the new year. 

Does anyone have the contact information for an Arcade food bank? I'd like to contact them to see what their needs are.

It's the Giving Season

December 10's meeting started off with its regular moment of silence and a special call to remember the less fortunate in our area this holiday season.

For my family's part, we're packaging up a box of gently-used children's clothing, formula and baby food, and other random items to drop off at the Trading Post this weekend. Tossing a few containers of baby food into the shopping cart while getting groceries for the past few weeks hasn't strained our budget, and I'm happy with the knowledge that our small actions will make the lives of a few local families a bit easier this month.

What are you doing to celebrate this season of giving? And what are you doing to extend the holiday spirit year-round?

An Official Web Site for the Town of Sardinia

After the December 10 meeting, Councilman Norm Uhteg handed me a printout of the Town of Sardinia web site, a draft that will eventually become a live, working site.

From a web design perspective, I have no complaints. And that is coming from a notoriously picky web geek. It displays a good use of color with a very tasteful set of blue shades, nice photography of the Town Hall, a space for latest news, right on the home page, and a very clear and concise navigation set.

From a citizen's perspective, the ability to have general town information, board agendas and minutes, a directory, public notices and a calendar all in one place will be an amazing improvement, and will do a bunch to help improve intra-town communication.

I can't wait to see it online and available!

A Wild Idea on Municipal Energy

Like most other rational adults, seeing the numbers on the electric bill tick up, up and up each month makes my head spin. But it's also made me think. 

According to the Nebraska government web site, New York has some of the highest electric rates in the country. Only Hawaii is higher. Think about that for a minute. We have Niagara Falls, windmills, a reasonably distributed population, a highly-developed infrastructure, and New York is basically dead last on that list. That is criminal.

From what I've heard anecdotally, the villages of Arcade and Springville buy energy directly from the "grid," resulting in lower electric rates for residents. The Arcade web site, as of 2005 at least, cites their rates as among the lowest in the country. Someone, correct me if I'm wrong? 

Why can't the Town of Sardinia do the same thing? Or buy into the Springville or Arcade programs? 

Good Ideas for Sardinia?

The ideas from the Sardinia community meeting on November 6 have not yet been publicized. That's a shame. I wish I had taken notes, and I hope the results of the meeting are made public soon.

The three ideas that stand out in my mind, for good and for bad:

- a community center. As an idea, it's great. But looking at the state of the state's economy and general economic downturn, does it qualify as a good investment for a town of less than 3,000 people? I'd rather see a short-term plan to support small businesses and development in the town to bring people here, and generate a greater need for such a center.

- small business loans. Micro-loans are gaining popularity in developing nations throughout Africa and Central and South America. Why not extend that idea to local businesses? An investment in small businesses helps in both the short-term and long-term.

- web site. A blog like this site could be great, but it doesn't compare to an official, permanent and evolving Town web site. We shall see if progress has been made by the December board meeting.

The overarching theme of the meeting focused on a question: what is the plan for the town? Right now I can't even guess at what that plan could be. Until the board and community leaders articulate what their vision of the town looks like, and strategizing about doing good things in Sardinia is like throwing darts in the dark.