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Tails
Administrator
2682 Posts |
Posted - 09/25/2008 : 10:45:51 PM
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| I'm very concerned about this wall street bailout. I'm sure it will come up at the presidential debate tomorrow night. |
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tetris
Moderator
2040 Posts |
Posted - 09/25/2008 : 10:57:01 PM
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| Tomorrow night's debate, if it happens, is supposed to be about foreign policy; but, we'll see. |
Edited by - tetris on 09/25/2008 11:05:15 PM |
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massdee
Moderator
5299 Posts |
Posted - 09/25/2008 : 11:00:25 PM
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I think the economy will come up tomorrow night, if the debate takes place.
I keep changing my mind on the bailout. I know something has to be done but do we really want to pay for all these poorly run businesses? I just don't know.
Any thoughts? |
Edited by - massdee on 09/26/2008 09:49:40 AM |
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Tails
Administrator
2682 Posts |
 Posted - 09/26/2008 : 10:04:44 AM
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I would love to listen to the presidential candidates talk about this at a debate. I'll also listen to the president, who is due to come on TV any minute, and listen to what he has to say.
My layman's point of view is:
If these corporations fail, our economy will probably crash, and we "could" go back to the state of the great depression.
On the other hand, I pay (as I know a lot of other people do) BIG TIME federal taxes. Would this mean that federal taxes would go up? If that happened, that could push some people over the edge that work and still can not afford their homes so while the poorly run corporations get saved, it's may push the poor and middle class over the edge. I also think we are on the road to not having a middle class. |
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massdee
Moderator
5299 Posts |
Posted - 09/26/2008 : 11:23:07 AM
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| I just heard on Fox, the debate will take place tonight. John McCain has decided to attend and then return back to Washington to be part of the bailout decision. |
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Tails
Administrator
2682 Posts |
Posted - 09/26/2008 : 11:27:10 AM
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| Did they mention if the bail out will be part of the debate? They said on Good Morning America that it most likely will. |
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massdee
Moderator
5299 Posts |
Posted - 09/26/2008 : 11:50:13 AM
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| They didn't say. |
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jcklla
Member
32 Posts |
Posted - 09/26/2008 : 5:54:10 PM
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| What makes Mr. Henderson think that he is qualified to give an opinion as to what should be done about the economic crisis. Everyone has a right to their opinion, but what makes his opinion worthy of printing in the paper. Is he related to Marconi Almeida. Why does the Leader Herald give a credible voice to people who have some kind of agenda contrary to the interest of the majority of the citizens of Everett. |
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tetris
Moderator
2040 Posts |
Posted - 10/09/2008 : 10:40:15 AM
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Today's Leader-Herald made me chuckle. The front page had a huge headline "CITY CERTIFIES FY09 FREE CASH". Actually, it's the state that certifies free cash but let's not quibble about that. The article then goes into lengthy detail about the free cash transfers on Monday night's agenda. After that, it goes on to state that the size of the transfers was relatively no big deal but it chided the council for not informing the public of how much money was certified for free cash. They then praised Stephanie Smith for getting up at a later point in the meeting and announcing what the amount was and wished that we had more councilors who thought like her.
While I'm glad thar Ms. Smith got up to announce the amount, I'd rather have councilors who thought that it might be important to inform the public of this type of information before they took a vote on any free cash transfers.
The punch line to all this? The Leader-Herald failed to print the certified free cash amount as a part of the article. It was $5.6 million for anyone that missed it. Oh well, at least they thought that it was news; The Independent apparently didn't. |
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tetris
Moderator
2040 Posts |
Posted - 10/16/2008 : 10:50:35 AM
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Did anyboody read today's Leader-Herald coverage of Tuesday's BOA meeting? Wasn't there something.......missing? What's up with that?
Does anybody know what the problems are with the sale of Devens School that the paper alluded to in its editorial? The paper stated that the prospective buyer wants some changes to the deal that are significant enough that the issue will have to be brought back to the city council.
There was a letter to the editor from Mr. Henderson about the global financial crisis. It was signed as Personnel Director. Does anybody what's going on with that? |
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tetris
Moderator
2040 Posts |
Posted - 10/23/2008 : 12:43:19 PM
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Some info and thoughts from this week's Leader-Herald:
Is it just me or was this presentation of the check for the state's payment for the new high school way over the top? I can't think that the other cities and towns that are waiting desperately for their own school building projects to get funded would be happy if they saw all the hoopla surrounding this. The building has been open for a year now; get over it! All of this a day before the state budget gets cut dramatically. Just another lousy photo op for people who mostly weren't even in their current positions when all of this really went down.
The Leader-Herald threw it's own two cents into the mix about what's going on down at the rotary. Although I don't think that the editorial got to the real bottom of what's going on there (any more than I can), it did some severe busting on the mayor and his "chief of staff". Where is that coming from?
Finally! What we've been waiting for...a confirmation that Wayne will be having his Halloween party this Sunday. Seemed kind of low key, though. Poor guy must still be down in the dumps.
The official Wood Waste meeting announcement finally appeared in a newspaper. What's the delay been?
The ECTV listings printed in the paper get worse every week. The listings for the CC and BOA meetings have dates from two weeks ago. If they are the right listings, no coverage of the Wood Waste meeting, live or otherwise, is scheduled.
I forgot to post about last night's ECTV-16 troubles. The early run of the CC meeting didn't play; at least the bulletin board stayed on. At 11 PM, the meeting cut off after 20 minutes. I read a rumor that Matt Laidlaw's position is being funded by a grant that says that he needs to work on local cable access stuff. If I funded that grant, I'd be asking for a refund. |
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johnfounder
Member
43 Posts |
Posted - 10/26/2008 : 9:18:27 PM
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| I heard that Matt is too busy trying to get someone to take care of email issues, and other IT issues that the MIS folks would have resolved. He has trouble enough with the ECTV stuff never mind email... |
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Tails
Administrator
2682 Posts |
Posted - 10/26/2008 : 10:58:16 PM
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ECTV is blaming the "new guy" No way......It was cut off again at 11:00. It's going on too much. There may have been minor issues that were always corrected with Scott, NEVER anything like this. I also have not seen any Wood Waste announcements lately on ECTV.
The cities e-mail is haywire. So much for competence!
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tetris
Moderator
2040 Posts |
Posted - 11/14/2008 : 09:45:27 AM
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Did anybody else read the letter to the editor from Mr. Henderson that was in the Leader-Herald yesterday? I've wanted to post about since I first read it but I have had a hard time putting my feelings together about; but since I've spent a good chunk of time on it, let me give it a shot.
It seems like Mr. Henderson might be a little bit of a polarizing figure. Some people feel that he's good at his job; others don't like him. But that's not what this post is about; it's about whether or not the city should have a personnel director at all. I was one of those people who felt that it was a mistake to eliminate the personnel director's position in the FY09 budget; I still feel that way. So, in that light, I am happy that Mr. Henderson is still at city hall and maintaining the title.
What I'm not happy with is that the administration seems to have changed course in mid-stream and has not budgeted correctly for the path that they have taken. Things come up all the time in the course of running an enterprise that you just can't plan for. If something out of the ordinary happens, you can understand a change in direction; but, what changed here? We could only speculate. And we'd have to speculate because I think that if Mr. Henderson could not give us answer in the paper, it is very unlikely that we could pickup the phone and call city hall to get an answer. But rather than waste time and effort on idle speculation, let's focus on what needs to be done to correct the situation. But before we do that, let's look at some of the claims that Mr. Henderson makes in his letter.
I disagree with Mr. Henderson's contention that the mayor, by retaining him, is still saving the city money. To do that, let's look at some facts. The budget submitted by Mr. Henderson for the personnel department for FY09 was basically flat. His department's budget increased by only $942 while providing raises for himself and his staff and restoring professional development funding to the department. In the mayor's version of the budget, he increased the budget by $10,000 for labor attorneys and cut the $64,100 budgeted for the personnel director position. The other $65,000 that was cut from the line items that fall under Mr. Henderson's purview had nothing to do with the mayor. They were cut by recommendations made by Mr. Henderson and approved by the city council. In fact, one of the cuts, $25,000 for labor attorneys flies direct in the face of the 40% increase for that line item that was proposed in the mayor's version of the budget. Some argument could also be made that the cuts that were ultimately made to the unemployment and workmen's comp line items should have been included in the original version of the budget. But let's give Mr. Henderson the benefit of the doubt here and assume that, at the point that the cuts were proposed, he had better information about the line items. It does seen convenient though that the additional cuts that were adopted were almost exactly equal to the amount needed to offset the budgeted amount for Mr. Henderson's FY09 salary.
Even if Mr. Henderson's salary is the only thing that is being paid out of temporary salaries line item for far this year, it would seem likely that the $24,500 budgeted in that line line item would soon be exhausted if Mr. Henderson is still receiving somewhat the same salary. So as Mr. Henderson suggests, transfers will be needed. First off, the temporary salaries line item needs to be restored to whatever level that the administration feels is needed to get them thru the rest of FY09. If the mayor, is planning to keep Mr. Henderson on, enough money to pay his salary should be transferred the salaries line item in the personnel department and Mr. Henderson should be paid from there. In order to do this, the mayor needs to come with a viable source for the funds needed; it should not be funded from free cash. As long as that is done, the measure should be supported by the council, especially by those members who thought that eliminating the personnel director was a mistake. The issue should not be turned into a political football; the right thing should be done for the city. At the same time, if anything needs to done elsewhere in the city to correct similar situations (i.e., Anthony Ranieri, Barry Doyle), they need to addressed as well and the city needs to move on.
I can understand that Mr. Henderson is very gratified that the mayor has kept him on in tough economy and jobs market. But, I must disagree with his contention that people are trying to micromanage the mayor. What I believe is happening is that people are expressing their displeasure that the administration appears to be having problems with sticking with a direction that is bound by budgetary constraints. If the the administration does not want to hear these complaints, that's fine. But let's just remember that the voters of this city do have an opportunity to make themselves heard every two years. |
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tetris
Moderator
2040 Posts |
Posted - 12/19/2008 : 11:44:08 PM
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Although it looks like I'm logged on all of the time, I'm not really. Sometimes, I actually have to do some other things. My slate's been pretty full the last couple of days, so I haven't had the time to post; excuse me while I catch up. On to this week's Leader-Herald.
I probably found more in yesterday's Leader-Herald that I wanted to comment on than I do in the average month's worth of the paper. Let's start on the front page with what appears to be a press release from the mayor's office about the consent agreement. Last week, I commented on the article in the Advocate about the consent agreement by saying "...it's not a good thing to come away from reading a news article with more questions than answers." and "...I can't believe that the Mayor could be happy with the way that the information was presented." Well, now we find out that it is likely that one of the main sources of the Advocate story was a press release from the administration. I guess that I owe the Advocate at least a bit of an apology. I guess this is the way that the Mayor wanted this information portrayed as the press release raises the same unanswered questions. And the benefit of having a Director of Communications is?
The biggest unanswered question about the consent order is when will/has the consent order been issued? According to a post from Massdee in another thread, one or more alderman have told her that the consent order will be presented Monday evening. But, also in another thread, Tails raises a valid question of where is the consent order on Monday night's agenda. The consent order could be presented under the cease and desist item;. but, the presentation of the capital improvement budget appears in two separate items on the agenda, one under the Communications from the Mayor and the other under Unfinished Business. Doesn't seem consistent, does it? It's just what the Wood Waste issue needs; more confusion surrounding it. Therefore, it seems even more important to watch or attend Monday night's meeting (if you can) to see what is going to happen.
Also on the front page of the paper was their usual article about that week's city council meeting. The thing that I found interesting about it this week was that I wasn't the only one who had a fascination with the saga of no parking on Hall Avenue. The paper actually printed the history of the two pieces that I had researched but didn't write-up it because I doubted that anyone else would be interested in it. The only thing that they didn't include that was documented in the BOA agendas was that the first extension of the trial period was requested because the signs had never been taken down to start the trial period. Who knows if they ever were? I don't think we'll ever know the whole truth about the situation but, at least, it has come to an end.
Next, on page three, there is an article (press release?) that states the "major construction of five streets in North Everett....finished well ahead of schedule". There has been a debate going on over on Topix whose main premise is that this is far from the case. I don't know what the truth is but it seems to me that that we are well past the end of street construction season and it wouldn't make a lot of sense for major construction on a street to be carried from one construction season to another.
Also on page three, there was a notice that the Mayor has rescheduled the community meeting to Thursday, January 8th from 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM at the Rec Center. I'll make sure that the notice gets posted in the appropriate thread as well.
Finally, there was real estate transaction that caught my eye. According to the paper, Fourth Street, Lot 1 was sold for $200,000 from Wood Realty Trust, John Atwood, Trustee to Everett Business Center, LLC. I researched the transaction on the Registry of Deeds and found the document that describes the transaction (Book # 51927, Document #583). First off, Wood Realty Trust is held by the Atwood family; they own the property where Harley Davidson is located. As far as I could tell, they have no connection to Woody's Tire, which is what first came to my mind when I read it. It appears that the transaction was to settle the claim that the Atwoods would be entitled to half of Fourth Street after it was discontinued as abutters. The description of the lot that was sold in the transaction appears to be identical to the description of the portion of Fourth Street that was discontinued (including the seeming error in the description of where the third leg ends) with the exception that the width of the lot is 25 feet rather than 50 feet and the total square footage of the lot is only half of what was discontinued.
There has already been a post over on Topix that questions who paid for this transaction with the implication that the city did. I have no idea who did pay for it but, actually. I wouldn't be surprised if the city did. I don't have an issue with that, it least on some level, and even knowing that others will probably disagree with me. The city sold Mr. Thibeault all of Fourth Street but, in reality, they couldn't deliver what they sold because someone else put a claim in on it. Is that Mr. Thibeault's fault? Put yourself in his place and tell me who should pay the price to acquire the rights to it. As much as we might not like it, right is right for everyone.
What I do have a problem with is the amount that was paid for the property if the city footed the bill. I recall that that the Mayor stated (although my memory could be faulty) that the situation with the Atwoods could probably be settled for $80,000 to $90,000. This transaction is considerably more than that. I don’t think that it was a great negotiating strategy to let it be publicly known that $200,000 from the sale of the old City Yards had been but aside for contingencies. I know that City Council wanted to know this information; but, may be it should have been done only in executive session if it was possible. Of course, with the number of people involved, all with their own constituencies, it wouldn't be surprising if the information still got out. It's just disappointing. Was half of Fourth Street really worth almost 6% of the entire transaction? |
Edited by - tetris on 12/20/2008 12:41:28 AM |
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Leader Herald
