The Other Side of Town.......

LT Ben! LT Ben!

2012-02-15T20:19:00.001-05:00

Have you see the movie Forrest Gump? If you haven’t, you really should; it’s what a friend called ‘just a great story.’ in the same vein for this reporter as “Waking Ned Devine.”

We love the signature line ‘run, Forrest, run!’

On the other hand, if you’re one of the local elites and/or artistes, you probably consider it completely without redeeming value, and beneath you. In which case, you should get over yourself.

One of the lead characters in the movie is LT Dan Taylor, played by Gary Sinise. It may have been his breakthrough role. In the years following, he formed the “LT Dan Band,” which travels to various destinations to entertain our troops.

There’s a movie documenting the band’s founding and travels, and it’s worth your time to watch; the troops’ response is a great reminder of what they are enduring and how much they appreciate a taste of home.

Playing off the LT Dan theme, we tonight come to you to talk of LT Ben. That would be Local Taxpayer Dover, Benjamin. We’ve recently been reminded of his prominence in local skirmishes. And his vital role in the outcome. He represents so many of us, year after year.

We’re talking of the annual campaign of intimidation put on by the Brunswick School Department to soften up the battlefield well before actual budget submission. With air cover provided by their remotely piloted drones at The Ostrich.

Ed. Note: You can review our reporting on last year’s activity at http://othersideofbrunswick.blogspot.com/2011_05_01_archive.html and http://othersideofbrunswick.blogspot.com/2011_06_01_archive.html

One of our favorites from last year is this item:

In last year’s reporting we told you of the Board of Education’s formation of a “Political Action and Media Committee.” You couldn’t find better evidence of their commitment to manipulate public opinion than recent press coverage.

As proof, three obsequious front page stories appeared in one week in the ever slavish Ostrich, always a sucker for free content. Add to that a letter by a clueless local state representative, who predictably believes that more money is always the right answer to any concern. Our School Department also had a featured spot in the Portland paper. (Maybe they can get a bailout grant from S. Donald Sussman-Pingree, Maine’s very own SOB Wall Street profiteer!)

Brunswick is rightly well known for the MSMT: the Maine State Music Theater. But we feel compelled to remind you of Brunswick Schools’ own in house drama program. It’s lesser known than the MSMT, but no less consequential.

They appear in public as the BTBT: the Brunswick Town Boo-hoo Theater. This is the seasonal company that produces the annual budget drama starring the School Department, the School Board, and the professionals and amateurs who make up the ensemble and chorus.

The recent articles in the NOTWIUN (our other name for The Ostrich) are the casting call, whether you realized it or not. The announcements read as follows between the lines:

Now auditioning: the Brunswick Town Boo-hoo Theater is seeking individuals to fill the following roles in an upcoming melodrama:

- The Drama Mamas, who shriek “the children are our future,” and then do everything in their power to see that the children don’t have a desirable future in Maine.

- Professor Plunder P. Klingle, the lying SOB from Bowdoin who is given a free pass by the audience and the press.

- Rosie the Realtor, to sing the show-stopping aria ‘Brunswick will die if we don’t spend more.’

- The Daddies, a doo-wah group crooning the ‘we only moved here because of the schools’ blues.

- Wicked Witch Wendy, reprising the ever-popular ‘if the elderly can’t afford to pay more in taxes, they should move out of town.’ (Ostrich, take note!)

- Daffy the Do-Do, quacking “'I’ll gladly pay more in property taxes,” but somehow never comprehending he’s had the freedom to do that forever.

- The schoolies, who will tap-dance in unison to the ‘our teachers are better than all the rest’ theme song.

- Assorted sympathetic youngsters who will insist that their entire future is about to be compromised because local meanies refuse to turn over their fair share as they see it. They’ll hand out Kleenex (school issued) to the weeping masses.

- For those of you who were hoping to score the MC role, modeled after Billy Flynn in the musical Chicago, sorry. That role is already taken. It’s assigned ‘ex officio,’ and saves the cost of a new top hat, cane, and soft shoes for the big dance number. (You gotta save the shekels ‘for the children’ wherever you can, right?)

- (Oops….we’d swear we hear the band playing the intro to “Give ‘em the old razzle-dazzle….”)

In the days ahead, when our stomach can handle it, we’ll analyze the articles and letters from our betters line by line, something the ‘government watchdogs’ at The Ostrich are completely incapable of doing. And not motivated in the least to undertake. What else would we expect from an outfit that can’t even budget their own operation responsibly enough so they can pay their bills? Their property tax bills, that is.

Doesn’t matter; they’ll get on their high horse and lecture the rest of us on our lack of caring and devotion. And counsel us to willingly pay whatever it takes in property tax increases. Pompous government lapdogs is all they are. That’s probably what it takes to avoid having the town take legal action to recover delinquent tax amounts, putting them at risk of going under. Would that make town government a ‘corporate raider?’

They’re pulling out all the stops on the pity pipe organ this year, my friends. The BTBT and The Ostrich; there’s a ‘pair to draw to.’ Maybe before the curtain goes up at the first budget hearing, the BTBT MC will thank the local paper for their season sponsorship, just like they do before shows at our wonderful summer theater.

Before we forget, we hope someone in the school department can tell us why a K-12 education is costing $176,000 this year, as compared to $123,000 five years ago, and $93,000 ten years ago? That’s right, the cost of a trip through our school system is up by 90% in the last ten years.

Here’s hoping the carpet in the public meeting chambers are stain proof, because when the band-leader turns on the propaganda machine, Kool-Aid bubbles are going to fill the room, and the schoolies won’t be able to catch them all on their tongues before they hit the rug and burst.

As a special treat, here’s a preview of the primary prop for the upcoming BTBT production, sent to us by an insider:

If you have the guts, make yourself happy by going to this link:

http://www.brunswick.k12.me.us/blog/2012/01/23/brunswick-school-department-special-events/#more-3245

After you do, you should be inspired to add touching the floor from a standing position to your daily workout. Limber is as limber does.

Technorati Tags: Brunswick,school budgets,Ostrich

Frosty’s Update: A real barn-burner!

2012-02-14T17:04:00.001-05:00

By all reports from the new owners, Nels and Shelby, the re-opening of Brunswick’s one of a kind donut shop has exceeded all expectations.

On Friday, they were handing out free samples while they lasted. They opened officially on Saturday, and we understand, were sold out in two hours. The same thing reportedly happened on Sunday. A friend waited in line for a considerable time (outside) on Saturday, but got still warm ‘twisties’ for her efforts, and she was aglow.

Side headed over yesterday (Monday) a little after 11 am hoping to have a cup of coffee and a tasty treat to go with it. The ‘sold-out’ sign was on the front door, but they were still open, so we had a cup of Wicked Joe’s “Frosty’s Blend,” which tasted great.

The place looked fresh and alive, and people continued to stream in looking for the donuts at the end of the rainbow, to no avail. The new owners looked a bit overwhelmed by the great response they’ve gotten from local aficionados.

This morning we were there a little after 7am, in our sleeper, the one with the attached footies, hoping to get some to bring home. We scored a quick dozen from the dwindling selection, but people were streaming in, and our guess is the remaining 4-6 dozen in the case were gone in a matter of minutes.

Back in the kitchen, however, two or three happy busy workers, including John Frost, were working energetically to cook up some more, probably lots more. Oh, if you were lucky enough to get there at the right time to get them while they’re still warm, you will be addicted, if you weren’t already.

Here’s hoping the owners, after all the hard work of getting ready to open, can adapt well to the demand and the hours. It will be interesting to watch how the supply is matched to the demand over the long haul.

This reporter’s habit has never been a 7am one. It’s been just the opposite; head over for a mid-day break when the rush is over, usually around noon or so. Linger over a donut or two and a second cup, while doing a bit of reading.

The product, we can certify, and this goes for us and many others, is exactly what we’ve all come to love. Which is to say irresistible. We expect to see several new varieties over the weeks and months ahead.

We wish Nels and Shelby and their crew fair winds and perfectly heated fryers for the coming spring and summer and fall. They have a challenge to optimize output vis-a-vis consumer desires, which at best, will vary all over the place.

And we have a challenge to match our preferred routine to the availability of our favorites.

Good thing their phone number hasn’t changed. Cause our tastes in such matters haven’t, other than being pent up after nearly a year of withdrawal.

Happy donuts to you!

Technorati Tags: Frosty's,donuts,new owners

Maine Wire: Tyranny and the F-Bomb

2012-02-07T10:58:00.001-05:00

In layman’s terms, the F-bomb, in all the versions just described, belongs to the class of shut-up words. It dares political opponents to challenge any statement that deploys it.

“You’re not against fairness, are you?”

“You mean you don’t support fair policies?” This is a dare.

“How can you oppose expecting the wealthy to pay their fair share?” This is a double dare.

Then there’s the shut up and sit down version: “it’s only fair,” which amounts to a triple dog dare.

http://www.themainewire.com/2012/02/f-bombs-ieds-road-tyranny/

Technorati Tags: fair,fairness,fair share,tyranny

Thought for the day

2012-02-04T17:53:00.001-05:00

Or maybe the week.

Or the month.

Or even the year.

“Oh what tangled webs we weave when first we practice to deceive.”

Only in the fullness of time will the reason for posting this today be revealed.

You’ll just have to be patient, dear readers. One way or another, we will find out together whether posting this cryptic quote was wrong, or that is was prescient beyond anything we’ve posted in our short and undistinguished history.

Stay tuned, as the saying goes.

Technorati Tags: tangled webs

The Fro’ IS a go!

2012-02-02T19:40:00.001-05:00

On Monday, we talked about the possible comeback of Frosty’s Donuts.

We said we’d stop by soon to see what’s going on, and so we have.

We did it on the way back from Augusta yesterday, and met the new owners. We’re delighted to say they are engaged, enthusiastic, and fully aware of the near-legendary status of the business they have purchased.

They plan to open next Saturday February 11th, and will be open seven days a week. At least in the near term, Bob and John Frost will be making the donuts, ensuring the product is exactly the same as what we’ve all come to love over the years.

We offered our suggestions for new items, and the good news is that they’re already planning on the Boston Creme item as a regular offering; the ‘long johns,’ or maple and chocolate bars, are also known to them.

But the buttermilk items referred to in the earlier post caught them by surprise. So we decided to look into the subject in hopes of finding some useful information.

Do you know what ‘taste memory’ is? Do you think you have it?

We sure do. We can remember the taste of the gumbo, and the andouille encrusted redfish we had at Emeril’s in ‘Nawlins something like 15 years ago. As if it was yesterday.

Our ‘taste memory’ for buttermilk donuts came back immediately when we discovered these photos on the internet; they’re perfect images of the delectable treats we remember.

Trust us, if you ever get to sample the above, it will be a revelation. Especially if iced with some nice dark chocolate. Now all we have to do is get the new Frosty’s to create and offer them.

Sadly, in the midst of the excitement of meeting the new owners, we forgot to offer ours services as official quality assurance taster.

Oh well; sometimes you get the donut, sometime you get the hole. Happy dipping, dunking, and noshing!

Technorati Tags: The Fro,donuts,coffee breaks

Is the Fro’ a go? Sure hope so!

2012-01-30T17:23:00.001-05:00

(Ed note: if the Bohemian Coffee House can be called ‘The BoHo,’ we figure Frosty’s can go by ‘The Fro.’

We read just the other day in the Bowdoin Orient that the new owners of Frosty’s Donuts are busily at work planning for a grand re-opening.

We can’t wait. We hope to be among the first to report on their offerings once they do open, and we wish them great success.

From what the article says, we should have high hopes the new owners will be carrying on the Frost’s tradition of making the best donuts anywhere.

Omdal and St. Andre will, for the most part, stay faithful to the Frosts' recipes and business model. They will also have Bob Frost in the kitchen, until the reopening, to help them along the way.

"We're keeping the basic donut recipe exactly the same, and we plan to be open seven days a week," said St. Andre.

Sounds like they are hard workers too.

We plan to stop by soon and offer our good wishes, and to volunteer as an experienced taster to help evaluate their progress. We’ll also suggest some new items to try: long johns, buttermilk bars, and boston cremes.

All we ask is that they pay us a living donut wage in return.

Spread the word. This young couple is taking on some hard work, and not many these days are up for that. They should be rewarded with customer support for worthy efforts.

Technorati Tags: donuts,more donuts,lots of donuts

Maine Housing: playing the game artfully

2012-01-26T12:17:00.001-05:00

You may remember that we touched on ‘focused’ public service spending at the Maine State Housing Authority in this post of last week.

Don’t feel embarrassed if you can’t remember. We’ve been consumed by other matters in recent days as well, and have been less than diligent in posting compelling items. Perhaps you’ve had withdrawal symptoms.

Before we get to the point of this post, here’s the descriptor that MSHA appends to their press releases:

MaineHousing, a quasi-governmental agency, is a $1.6 billion financial institution that serves 90,000 people annually and infuses approximately $1.2 million into Maine’s economy daily.

In other words, one out of fourteen residents of Maine are served by MSHA, and roughly $440 million is ‘infused’ into our state economy annually in the process. That’s more than $4,800 per person ‘served,’ or $400 per month. And $440 million means $330 plus for each and every resident of Maine is distributed annually.

Clearly, we aren’t talking about peanuts. Maine’s general fund spending is in the vicinity of $3 billion per year. The source of MSHA’s funds are unclear in the specifics, but there can be no doubt they all come from taxpayers. Which means they are dollars compelled by the force of law, whether or not you see their efforts as charitable.

Now to our main point. On January 17th, just last week, Maine Wire published the item referenced above, which linked to a 565 page file MSHA provided in response to a Freedom of Access request from MHPC. It took more than 6 months for MSHA to provide this info, and MHPC paid $800 for the labor involved in compiling it.

As you can tell if you looked at the list, it consists only of names and addresses of ‘vendors’ used by MSHA, with no dates, number, or amounts of payments.

MaineWire.com did exactly what any requestor of such info would do, and what MSHA should have expected they would do. It asked why MSHA would be making payments to Funtown-Splashtown and other vendors not clearly involved in their mission of providing housing for those who cannot afford it on their own. Seems reasonable enough to raise the questions, especially since MSHA is spending other peoples’ money to help the needy.

MSHA told MHPC that it would take a huge effort to deliver all the details (dates and amounts) of payments to the vendors on the 565 page list.

Strangely enough, the day after the the Maine Wire article appeared, other media outlets had details of dates and amounts for a number of MSHA expenditures, and published them to suggest that MHPC had made a mountain out of a mole-hill, and even worse, conducted an ‘invasion into a public officials personal life.’

The biggest point here is that while MSHA could not provide details of transactions to MHPC in response to their formal request, they were able to come up with numerous such details for other media personnel in a matter of hours, presumably because it would explain some of the legitimate questions raised by the vendor list disclosure. They distributed the details to a long list of media contacts, including a “Progressive News Source” blog, but not to MHPC, which formally requested the data to begin with.

We’ll leave it to you to decide whether MSHA intentionally gamed the system, making partial disclosure months after data was requested, and then providing clarifying details to others the day after the Maine Wire article appeared.

One thing is sure. The ‘media outlets’ that got the clarifying details from MSHA owe a debt of gratitude to MHPC.

There’s no way any of them would have looked into MSHA operations and finances unless MHPC first raised the issue. They’re all too lazy, and cozy with the entrenched 40 year aristocracy to do so.

And they sure as hell don’t want to risk their access to the movers and shakers.

Government watchdogs? Don’t make me laugh.

Or worse.

Technorati Tags: MSHA,media ethics,Maine,affordable housing

MaineWire: Venture Statism

2012-01-26T09:50:00.001-05:00

For the interested student:

Bankrupting a free and innovative American economy does not have an upside. Liquidation has no benefit when the entire national enterprise is at stake. Job loss is a plague when statism replaces capitalism. Buy-outs are one thing; wipe-outs of public equity are calamity on a historic scale.

Read it here.

Technorati Tags: speculation,statism,capitalism

MaineWire: Thou Shalt Not Steal, even the Maine Council of Churches…

2012-01-18T07:45:00.001-05:00

From the article:

Your identity, in the political sense at least, has been stolen from you by the Maine Council of Churches. And they have taken it like a thief in the night.

How can I make such an assertion? Because if you attend a church of any of the above denominations, they claim your imprimatur in their political activism. And I am confident they have done it without your direct approval, and more than likely, without your knowledge.

Find the article here.

Technorati Tags: Non-profits,MCC

Looking under MSHA rugs…..OOPs!

2012-01-17T11:04:00.001-05:00

The Maine State Housing Authority has been in the news plenty in recent weeks in stories about excessive housing prices, and then lax oversight of Section 8 landlords and properties.

Now some sunshine is coming in through MSHA office windows, and interesting things are coming in to view.

For those of you are not yet following MaineWire regularly, it’s time you begin. In particular, you should read this recent item:

http://www.themainewire.com/2012/01/luxury-hotels-magicians-massage-maine-housing-vendor-list-reveals-questionable-expenditures/

It concludes with this piece of work:

“I think,” McCormick is quoted in the Bangor Daily News, “the more people know about what we do and how we do it, the prouder they are going to be. I think we are a model for how quasi-government agencies should be operated.”

After you read the article, you’ll understand just how depraved and self-delusional the entrenched political ruling class has become.

Oh they’re a ‘model,’ alright.

Still, we are left to wonder whether the Maine Turnpike Authority took lessons from the MSHA or vice-versa. Or even worse, that there is a centralized School of Hack-o-rama Studies hidden somewhere in the Greater Augusta region.

We’re gonna need ‘disinfectant’ by the truck loads around here. Sunlight, especially this time of year, may not be enough.

Technorati Tags: MSHA,MaineWire

Roots: The Pork Connection

2012-01-16T20:57:00.001-05:00

No, silly; not that kind of pork! Much as we’re dismayed by the widespread distribution of ‘pork’ all over our civic landscape, including right here in innocent little Brunswick, that’s not our focus tonight.

We’re talking about the pork that stores in some parts of the country specialize in. Like this one:

Maybe you recognize it, maybe you don’t. Your chances are much better if you’re from New Jersey, like this correspondent is.

We grew up in a place called Secaucus, in the shadow of Manhattan’s skyline. Secaucus has a history rich in pork.

Before the 1950s, Secaucus was home to a number of pig farms,rendering plants, and junk yards, which gave the town a reputation for being one of the most odorous in the New York metropolitan area. In 1963, debris from the demolition of Pennsylvania Station was dumped in the Secaucus Meadowlands.

New Jersey Monthly magazine ranked Secaucus as its 11th best place to live in its 2008 rankings of the "Best Places To Live" in New Jersey.

Growing up, the sounds and smells of the Armour and Swift slaughter houses were prominent aspects of life. As was plinking for rats on the pig farms. The pig farms were here, just miles from Manhattan, for a very good reason: garbage from the hotels and restaurants and stores in New York were rich in discarded food products, which became ‘swill’ as it was dumped into the pig pens.

It all made perfect sense in the 50’s and 60’s of our youth. ‘Waste Management’ was a big industry in the area, and truckloads of valuable ‘byproducts’ could be hauled from Manhattan to the farms of Secaucus in a matter of minutes. Silverware and other table service items mixed in with the consumables were an added bonus for the farmers.

Secaucus had substantial notoriety in those days, largely because of its unique drive-through ‘aroma therapy.’ Perhaps it’s most notorious claim to fame was a colorful local personality who decided to run for President:

Henry B. Krajewski (July 15, 1912 – November 8, 1966) was an American politician who ran for the United States Presidency in 1952 (for the Poor Man's Party) and in 1956 (for the American Third Party). He was also an American Third Party candidate for the United States Senate from New Jersey in 1954. He also ran for New Jersey Governor three times, in 1953 (Jersey Veterans Bonus), 1957 (American Third Party), and 1961 (Veterans Bonus Now).

In 1952, he owned and ran a 4,000-pig farm in Secaucus, New Jersey. With printing-press operator Frank Jenkins as his running mate, his platform included a one-year tax moratorium for every taxpayer with an annual income below $6,000, and one free pint of milk a day in school for every child. He won 4,203 votes.

Krajewski ran a tavern in his side of town, and we can remember being in it at least once, probably for birch beer and a sandwich. His picture, in which he was holding a baby pig, ran in Time Magazine, with his slogan ‘politicians are jokers.’

Fast forward to the present. Our daughter now lives in New Jersey, just a short drive from where we were born and raised. If you must know, Secaucus has no more pig farms, and has prospered as a commuter community for those who work in New York City. The Meadowlands Sports Complex is not within the city limits, but is a major factor in the overall economics of the area.

Color us delighted when our daughter gave us “Food Lovers Guide to New Jersey” for Christmas. In it, we found two pork stores in her vicinity. One Italian themed, the other German themed. And both unbelievable.

On the same trip, we spent an afternoon in Manhattan, and visited Zabars Deli and the Fairway Market on the upper west side. If you’re not a ‘foodie,’ no big deal. If you are, we’re talking heaven, especially compared to Maine.

We were going to regale you with descriptions of the sights and smells of these places, but what’s the use? Instead, we’ll tell you that the NYC stores don’t need our help. if you make it to Manhattan, ask anyone where they are, and they’ll tell you. And prepare yourself for sensory overload.

In New Jersey, the Italian themed place is A&S Pork Store, in West Paterson. Make sure to practice your fuggedaboutit shtick before you go there; it’s that kind of place.

The German themed place is The Swiss Pork Store in Fair Lawn, and since that is our heritage, it was our favorite. The welcome and the selection are world class. And there’s a great old fashioned bakery two doors down.

Here are some shots from the Swiss Pork Store:

On a closing note, New Jersey Pork Stores are known for adapting to the needs of their customers. You can see the proof in this candid shot, in which local fans show their support for their local meat processor.

Pork? Waste Management? Good neighbors looking out for your interests and your safety? And Jersey Boys.

What’s not to like?

Technorati Tags: pork,new jersey,foodies

For the MRRA, it’s hummedeh hummedeh hummedeh time…

2012-01-12T15:11:00.001-05:00

As the great man might say if he was mayor of Lake Basebegone, MRRA and Brunswick are now squarely ‘facing the tail of the bull.’

Alan Horowitz, oops, I mean Klapmeier, and his Kestrel Aviation job explosion in the local area, are now one step closer to saying buh-by, ta-ta, and au revoir to the local landscape.

The Superior Telegram reported today:

An aircraft manufacturing facility in Superior gained a nod of approval Tuesday from the Douglas County Land and Development Committee.

The committee voted unanimously to transfer property at the fairgrounds to the city’s Redevelopment Authority to facilitate a proposed manufacturing facility for Kestrel Aircraft Company.

One of the more curious parts of the whole story is how the number of jobs to be created has increased since Kestrel’s whirlwind landed the plum aviation asset on the former Navy Base. 300 was the number used to win the prize here in Brunswick, Maine, but it took doubling down to 600 to grease the way in Wisconsin.

Hey; you want jobs? I got your jobs right here.

Their development authorities must be a lot tougher than ours. Or maybe Maine workers are thought to be twice as productive as those slugs in Wisconsin.

Surely the Inferior Ostrich will do an in-depth investigative report to let us know how our local trustees missed those other 300 jobs. And how ‘TIFs’ might be called into play to keep the deal alive.

In related news, local weather forecasts call for temperatures to continue in the 70’s.

Soon as we finish clearing all the warm air off the driveway, we’ll see if Stella can get hold of Senator Stan the Minority Man, Johnny Protocols, and FLee Bailey. If the betting is still open, they could try dropping the job promise to 150.

Or they could bring in some milk-cows from Wisconsin to help the grass stay short and green, in an environmentally appropriate fashion consistent with the underlying story line.

Technorati Tags: MRRA,Kestrel,Lake Basebegone

Good morning, union brothers and sisters…..

2012-01-11T08:23:00.001-05:00

Alright now, sing along with me:

“Solidarity forever, solidarity forever…”

Cut!

You over there….why aren’t you singing? And you, and you, and you all the way in the back?

What? You aren’t union members?

Haven’t you seen the latest column on MaineWire.com?

…Brunswick property taxpayers are sending along 1% or more of their tax assessments to the MEA for use in any way they see fit. This makes a taxpayer a de facto dues paying member of the union. Even worse, such taxpayers are deemed to be in full agreement with union officials on ballot issues, candidate support, and all other political campaign expenditures. And their lobbying efforts as well.

Now tomorrow morning, I want EVERYONE singing! And make sure your tee-shirts are clean and neatly pressed!

We may have to go to Augusta, but don’t worry; buses and signs will be provided.

Technorati Tags: MaineWire,teachers union,Brunswick

Slumlords, Slumming Columnists, and Poetry Slams

2012-01-10T18:33:00.001-05:00

As most of you know, Side is a cranky old man, and we’ve put a lot of years and effort into perfecting our reputation and stature as a leader in the field. So please humor us while we light the pettiness lamp.

One of the things about contemporary journalism that really fries our grits is the practice of placing an opinion columnist’s photo at the top of his/her column. These are never simple candid snaps; instead, they’re artfully posed to inspire reverence, and to ‘make a statement.’ Think Paul Krugman, Eddie Beem, and Billy “Boohoo” Nemitz.

In the case of Nemitz, the statement made reads as follows to your correspondent:

“Listen up, little people. I’m up here and you’re down there, and there’s a reason for that.

It’s because I have a piercing intellect, a pure and humble heart, and I care more than you do. You aren’t worthy of what I’m about to say, and it will fly right over your heads, but my benevolence demands mercy for even the least among you.

Ergo, I will shower you with my wisdom. Just remember how fortunate you are to sit at my feet and be enlightened.”

And then a familiar tune seems to play…

“But where in the world
Is there in the world
A man so untouched and pure?
It’s me!”

There; that takes care of our repressed pettiness for the moment; the lamp is out until we light it again.

To the subject at hand:

A few weeks ago, Billy Nemitz authored a ‘column’ that was styled after the beloved poem “’Twas the Night Before Christmas,” and in it, he voiced his grotesque disdain for Maine’s Republican Governor. Just two days before Christmas, it was ‘hate journalism’ of the most repulsive sort.

There is, as it turns out, an illuminating back story to his vile verse. Just three days before it appeared in print, Nemitz had invested a half day in Augusta at the Maine State Housing Authority. This was the most recent meeting of the MSHA Board of Commissioners, and he arrived an hour before the meeting began, presumably for a private audience with MSHA’s Director, Dale McCormick.

He then sat through the Board Meeting itself. Given Billy’s well known MO, his transparent hatred for all things at odds with his extreme leftism, and recent news on the MSHA front, it’s obvious he was there to gather evidence for one or more future attack columns.

We’re sure he arrived confident he’d find Governor LePage had sent a hit squad to MSHA offices, and directed them to engage in witch-hunts and various other forms of uncalled for wire-brushing. All to demonize a pure and devoted cadre of public servants who exist only to bring relief to those who need it most. His dreamed for scenario fulfillment would confirm Nemitz’ belief in a LePage scorched earth political agenda.

We imagine that Nemitz, who we think of as Sir Boohoo-a-lot of the Left Table, arriving on his white horse, a firm grip on his pike, was intent on tilting Sir Bruce, Knight of the Right Table, off his steed. He would run him through over and over in print. We could almost hear him sing:

“MSHA! MSHA!
In Portland far I heard your call.
MSHA! MSHA!
And here am I to give my all.
I know in my soul what you expect of me,
And all that and more I shall be.”

Given the slumlord news reported in the weeks before this meeting, Nemitz probably thought he could go slumming about MSHA, and find evidence of the evil Poliquin and his merry band of vicious and politically motivated interlopers, reveling in the ooze and slime surrounding the organization.

Poor Billy; what he got instead was stunning disappointment, undermining his giddy expectation of multiple horror story columns for the next few weeks. I know because I was there.

Suddenly, Sir Boohoo-a-lot had a problem. A big problem. And nothing for his next deadline.

What he got for his travels was an MSHA Director sheepishly revealing how she had somehow reduced the cost of the Elm Street project from $314,000 per unit to $265,000 per unit, and a nightmare of embarrassment in Section 8 housing conditions in the Norway area, as we previously reported. Featured in the story is Avesta Housing, headed by one of Brunswick’s civic elites.

So Billy found himself without a credible screed to run. What would he do?

What he would do is submit an adolescent, Christmas themed attack upon our Governor. Call it an homage to the worst of Maine’s ‘creative culture.’

Taking Nemitz’ offering as a challenge, we decided to respond in kind. We drafted the following and submitted it to his editors:

Awed by Bill Nemitz’ recent ode of hate to our Governor, in the style of a well known Christmas poem, I longed for a muse to inspire a worthy response.

But none was forthcoming, so I dug through the closet and found my Shirley MacLaine magic decoder ring, and furiously rubbed the crystal in hopes of channeling a worthy bard. After several minutes’ effort, letters began to appear in the crystal, one after another. I scribbled them down as fast as I could, and what to my wondering eyes should appear, but this delivered verse so clear:

Sonnet #86, from the Portland Left

By Billy Barrett Nemitz-Browning

How do I hate thee? Let me tell you LePage.
I hate thee to the depth and breadth and rage
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal scorn.
I hate thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I hate thee freely, as men strive far left;
I hate thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I hate thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's spite.
I hate thee with a bile I seemed to lose
With my lost saints!---I hate thee with the breath,
Smirks, tears, of all my life!---and, if God choose,
I shall but hate thee better after death.

For reasons not disclosed, the editors did not acknowledge our submission or publish it. Go figure. But it is published here, for all to see and enjoy. Fa la la la, and deck your halls, etc.

Now the denouement of these events. On Friday evening past, MSHA released their report on the circumstances of the Norway fiasco.

Embarrassing as the report is, Sir Boohoo-a-lot saw it as a chance to pivot and again point his sharp tongue at Sir Bruce of the Right Table, and thus deflect his groupies away from the light.

In his column on Sunday, January 8th, Nemitz refers to “the embattled Executive Director McCormick,” which is never a good sign. Further, he writes:

But make no mistake about it. As MaineHousing's lengthy mea culpa makes the rounds this week, the long knives are about to get a whole lot longer.

In a press release issued just over a week ago, State Treasurer Poliquin claimed that MaineHousing's staff revealed at a recent board meeting that they "had known about these squalid conditions for at least two years."

I attended that meeting and never heard any such thing. But if Poliquin was on one of his facts-be-damned riffs before the Norway report was completed, imagine what he and his comrades-in-politics will do with 17 pages of self-scrutiny by the agency they claim can do no right.

Aye, then, the gauntlet was thrown down, accompanied by yet another familiar verse:

It’s Bill! It’s Bill, I rush to disclose.
I'm far too noble to lie.
That man in whom
These qualities bloom,
C'est moi, c'est moi, 'tis I.
I've never strayed
From all I believe;
I'm blessed with an iron will.
Had I been made
The partner of Eve,
We'd be in Eden still.

But forsooth, yet again, Sir Boohoo-a-lot gets caught carrying his pike with the pointy end aimed at himself, rather than his quarry. Unable to ignore Sir Boohoo’s pike in belly and foot in mouth, another brave knight responded.

Quick as a flash, on the eve of the very same Sunday, Good Sir Lance-a-lot, carrying the scarf of Lady Truth, responded with a video that runs Sir Boohoo-a-lot through.

And the next day, Sir Lance-a-lot further vanquished the columnist errant, with a rich and detailed treatise. It even mentions the childish Christmas poem.

No doubt editors of the Left-Table will declare Nemitz received only flesh wounds. But like the Black Knight, Sir Boohoo-a-lot is in need of more ’long-knife’ training. And he might want to get a few stitches in those flesh wounds.

Perhaps, should he lose his role as chief protagonist for the Portland left, Sir Boohoo-a-lot can look for a production of Liar of La Mancha holding auditions. The new version centers on green, renewable, alternative energy windmills, something Nemitz seems ideally suited for reporting on.

“To Dream the Impossible Dream……..” How appropriate, and right up his wheelhouse.

If that doesn’t work out, he can always seek employment as a short-order cook. He seems to have a way with eggs.

On a closing note, whenever you read that our exalted print media, like The Ostrich, etc, ‘don’t run any conservative letters because they just don’t get any,’ you can bet they are lying through their beady little eyes. We’ve provided two recent examples: this one for the Press Herald, and the TIF one last month involving The Ostrich.

Over the years, the number of cases of the same conceit are beyond counting, both for other writers and your faithful correspondent.

Technorati Tags: columnists,MSHA,caught in the act

A breath of ‘fresh’ air…

2012-01-03T20:14:00.001-05:00

For longer than we can remember, we’ve had to get by with the non-reporting, non-investigative efforts of the self-absorbed ‘mainstream media’ in Maine and Brunswick.

Their big-government advocacy has been reinforced by scores of organizations in the non-profit industrial complex that promote, prolong, and expand dependency on governmental benefits.

These are the hundred or more professionally staffed entities that claim ‘the disadvantaged have no voice,’ while they earn their living providing that voice. Look here to see who they are. Note the “Maine Can Do Better” mantle.

In contrast, we’ve often wondered who provides ‘the voice’ for working families who labor day after day to generate the revenue that funds the benefits for those dependent on government.

And we’ve never come up with a good answer. But there is hope.

A new web-based news service has been created, intended to offer an alternative to the one-sided coverage of established media outlets. It’s called TheMaineWire, and you can find it here.

A relevant example of their reporting efforts, germane to Maine Can Do Better, follows:

http://www.themainewire.com/2011/12/254/

Below is a sampling of the CEO salaries for some of the Maine Can Do Better groups:

Avesta Housing – $128,811 ($11 million in government funding)
Disability Rights Center – $95,955 ($1.6 million in government funding)
Family Planning Association – $102,454 ($3.8 million in government funding)
Preble Street – $88,109 ($2.5 million in government funding)

Planned Parenthood of Northern New England ($3 million in government funding) lists four executives on its 990 form:

Nancy Mosher – $201,888
Thomas Frank – $170,213
Cheryl Gibson – $204,955
Susan Smith – $150,845

Looks like you can do quite well providing a voice for others.

We hope you’ll visit The MaineWire regularly, and help them succeed in offering another ‘voice.’

Lord knows we desperately need it.

Technorati Tags: MaineWire,voices

Kestrel: Breaks, bulls, and suckers

2012-01-02T17:57:00.001-05:00

Time for a 2012 update from Lake Basebegone:

W. C. Fields is credited with some pithy bromides:

“There comes a time in the affairs of man when he has to take the bull by the tail and face the situation.”

“Never give a sucker an even break.”

For some reason, these seem to fit the moment.

Because one of the bitter disappointments of the golden years is finding out just how gullible one has been, and almost always learning that lesson via government, politicians, and the myriad parasites and cronies that love to rub shoulders with them while picking the publics’ pockets.

We suppose it is the penalty of leading a sheltered life in a family with ‘old fashioned’ values, and having spent a career with professionals who acted with integrity and respect for customers. So retirement came, and we had not learned the lessons that others may have along the way.

It’s especially painful when you find out that the word gullible is not even in the dictionary!

Our subject here is the recent news breaking on Kestrel Aviation. We had been making notes on the subject for some time, and were planning on an ‘in-depth’ essay when time and priorities allowed. We got waylaid by affairs at MSHA and other things we considered more timely. And our personal life, if you must know.

We’re going to address the subject briefly tonight, with plans to come back to it somewhere down the 400 foot platform that is a metaphor for “the road,” with appropriate governmental symbolism.

We think tonight of the estimates of 17,000 jobs; Jim Horowitz and Oxford Aviation; FLee Bailey; and Johnny “Protocols” Richardson and his private discussions with ‘a half dozen or more Fortune 500 companies’ interested in locating on the former Naval Air Station.

By comparison, 100 train passengers a day coming to dine and shop in Brunswick is barely worthy of note.

The Chase:

Recent news reports indicate that the Kestrel Aviation ‘promise’ of a glorious aviation future for Brunswick is turning out to be so much hype and propaganda associated with milking whatever public (IE: taxpayer) funding cows are grazing in the fields.

This report appeared in the BDN last week:

BRUNSWICK, Maine — Kestrel Aircraft Co. is negotiating with development officials in Superior, Wis., to create 300 to 600 jobs initially envisioned for Maine, a local redevelopment official confirmed Friday.

Steve Levesque, executive director of the Midcoast Regional Redevelopment Authority, said Friday that Kestrel founder Alan Klapmeier confirmed a story in the Duluth (Minn.) News Tribune reporting on a Jan. 16 public hearing at which the city of Superior would consider a development agreement with Kestrel for the company to build parts for its new single-engine turboprop plane there.

A friend sent along further reports from other outlets:

The city of Superior is in the running for an airplane manufacturing facility that could create 300 permanent jobs initially and up to 600 jobs by 2016.

Kestrel Aircraft Co. — led by founder and former head of Duluth-based Cirrus Aviation, Alan Klapmeier — has been in negotiations with the city and state of Wisconsin since mid-July to discuss the possibility of siting a manufacturing plant in Superior.

Under the terms of the development agreement, the city would provide assistance with the project with the sale of land, grants, and tax increment financing to encourage the development.

In addition, the state could provide tax credits to make the project a reality, said Port and Planning Director Jason Serck.

And this from AVWEB.COM:

Kestrel Moving To Wisconsin?

Media in Duluth, Minn., and Superior, Wis., are reporting that a deal is close to site the new factory for Kestrel Aircraft in Superior, which is a few miles from Kestrel President Alan Klapmeier's home town of Duluth and just across the Wisconsin border. Klapmeier, who co-founded Cirrus in Duluth, took over Kestrel 18 months ago with plans to manufacture the turboprop single in Brunswick, Maine. It's not clear what happened with the widely publicized plans to build the aircraft at a decommissioned naval air station in Brunswick.

Kestrel was in line to receive an incentive package in exchange for the 300 jobs the facility would create. Wisconsin seems to be stepping up to the plate financially, too, and is hoping the plant eventually creates 600 jobs. "This is a significant number of jobs, right now, but it will continue to be a significant number of jobs in the years to come," said Jim Caesar, an economic development consultant contracted by the city told the Superior Telegram. "They have plans beyond this prototype that will require additional workers well into the future … this is an ongoing thing." A spokesman for Kestrel was not immediately available for comment.

In related news, MRRA directors are said to be looking for a new face to head the organization. Rumors are that Ben Dover has applied for the job, but calls to his representatives met with a turned cheek.

The Ostrich is reported to be hard at work not pulling it’s head out of the sand, fully committed to keeping it’s ‘government watchdog’ record tarnished.

We hope you’re feeling suitably loved and respected as another year of continued growth in the town of Perfect begins.

And that’s today’s report from Lake Basebegone.

Technorati Tags: MRRA,Kestrel,Lake Basebegone

“My Big Fat Greek Christmas”

2011-12-24T20:56:00.001-05:00

We saw the movie “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” at Brunswick’s own Eveningstar Theater some years back, and howled at it. A friend who went with us has a Greek sister-in-law, and knows her family pretty well. She assured us that the movie was an accurate portrayal of Greek family character, traditions, and eccentricities.

It remains one of our favorite movies; if you haven’t seen it, you should. If your sensibilities and sense of humor are even remotely close to ours, it will bring tears to your eyes, in more ways than one.

Our daughter’s neighborhood has a house that reminds us of the family patriarch’s house in the movie.

Well, you should see it at Christmas! Now the parallel to “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” is truly compelling and unavoidable.

To prove the point, and provide some Christmas cheer appropriate to the season, we pass along these photos – one in daylight, and one at night with full, and we mean full, big, fat illumination!

Trust us, the night time photo doesn’t do the place justice; our usually reliable professional photog just didn’t have his A-game tonight. We may get him to go back and video the place so you can see all the motion characters and hear the music.

We’ll close with this for now: Merry Christmas, loyal readers!

And here’s hoping Santa brings a bottle of Windex down your Chimney!

Opa!

Technorati Tags: Christmas,Big Fat Greek Wedding

MSHA: is it time to come clean?

2011-12-23T19:23:00.001-05:00

In this recent post, we wondered how the MSHA funded Elm Street “affordable housing project” (yeah, that’s a good one!) could have quickly gone from a projected cost of $314,000 per unit to an approved cost of $265,000 per unit.

The facts are becoming clearer, and they all point to ‘someone,’ as we speculated earlier, at MSHA.

MSHA held a board meeting this week, on Tuesday the 20th, and this very subject came up. Dale McCormick, the Director of MSHA, provided a rather low key explanation. It wasn’t so much about reducing the cost of the project as it was about increasing the number of units in the existing building, meaning the average size of the ‘affordable units’ was decreased to lower average cost to politically acceptable levels. The total cost of the project, while lowered a few percent from the worst case n number, is still significantly higher than the initial estimate.

This is not unlike the property tax game, where two variables are involved: mil rate, and assessed value. Periodic reassessments, that drive housing values significantly higher, allow local officials to ‘lower’ the mil rate, and claim they are somehow lowering the tax burden on local residents. This isn’t lying in the literal sense, but it’s close enough for horse-shoes.

The other items cited to lower the final Elm Street per unit price include a reduction in ‘developer fees,’ and ‘value engineering.’

These terms are nebulouse, which makes them perfectly suited to the purpose of so-called public servants trying to squirm out from under a very heavy rock.

We’ll watch for a detailed written summary from the Authority, but until we see it, you can bet the monkey is only sitting on one back, and said monkey was whispering in MSHA’s ear for some time, to no avail. Here’s hoping the monkey is listened to in the future.

Or is it time to clean up?

At this same meeting, an embarrassing subject arose: reports of squalid conditions in subsidized ‘affordable housing’ in Norway, Maine, involving what most would call a slum landlord, who would often take advantage of taxpayer provided rent payments via government programs. And relatively helpless tenants.

Follow the references here to get a ‘picture’ of what’s been going on:

State stops Section 8...

“I'll tell you right now, the people we're dealing with today should not be in new construction," she said. "You should see these houses when they move out.” She cited trash, dirty “flushes” and other unsanitary conditions brought on by tenants. “It's not fair; there's not much we can do about it,” she said.

Pratt no more

NORWAY — Landlord Madeline Pratt will no longer be allowed to participate in the Section 8 housing program, state officials confirmed on Friday. Pratt's daughter Beverly Kimball, who helps to manage her mother's apartments, said that the state is not giving them a fair chance to bring their apartments into compliance.

slumlords

Imagine renting an apartment where, when a neighbor flushes the toilet, waste bubbles up in the bathroom sink. Or living in a third floor apartment with the only way to get out being down the stairs because the exterior fire escape is barely attached ... its nails pulling out of the wall. Or living with everything you own plugged in via various power strips and extension cords to an outlet outside of your apartment.

Please note that Avesta Housing, headed by Brunswick’s own Dana Totman, is a leading player in this drama. Dana is often seen in various civic leadership posts, including the board guiding the highly successful MRRA efforts to turn the former Naval Air Station into a vibrant and dynamic economic engine. As if anyone in the area wants such a thing.

We’re confident Dana will have a cogent and defensible explanation of how his organization has been victimized and made the subject of a witch hunt in these reports. We’re biting our tongue really hard right now; we’ll just promise to print his defense here when it is issued.

MSHA and Totman are no doubt finding the way ahead more treacherous than they have previously encountered, since the Norway SNAFU has been elevated to federal attention levels.

Senator Susan Collins was contacted by local Norway officials. Here’s a report from another source:

The Maine Wire has obtained a copy of a letter sent today by U.S. Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine) to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, asking for an investigation into the recently-reported Section 8 housing violations at an affordable housing complex in Norway.

From the letter:

“I am writing to request your assistance in investigating the property inspection and fire code enforcement practices for federally subsidized properties in Oxford County, Maine. I have been contact by the Fire Chief of the Town of Paris, Maine, about serious safety violations in units that receive federal payments under the Section 8 program.

You can find the letter from the Senator here.

What’s the old saying about may you live in interesting times?

In this case, I think we’ll get our wish.

Technorati Tags: MSHA,affordable housing,Maine

Cross words for the Ostrich

2011-12-21T12:04:00.001-05:00

In the lingering days of our paid subscription to the Brunswick Bleep Bleep, the only thing that provided any value of note to this reporter was the daily NY Times Crossword Puzzle.

As best we can tell, the new, full and complete web version of The Ostrich does not include the NY Times puzzles.

As if any more nails were needed.

Technorati Tags: The Ostrich,press

There are TIFs, and then there are TIFs.

2011-12-20T21:56:00.001-05:00

Not that Ostrich editors can tell the difference!

In a fit of editorial pique, The Ostrich recently ran this editorial:

Peter Anastos of Yarmouth, a partner in the firm that operates hotels in Bath and Brunswick, believes the Brunswick Town Council erred in agreeing to a tax-increment financing (TIF) deal with the developer of the Inn at Brunswick Station.

Anastos has made his displeasure known in court cases, at Town Council meetings and in letters to the editor.

He certainly has a right to voice his opinion, but it’s time for Anastos to end his long-running tantrum.

In agreeing to the downtown TIF, Brunswick’s town councilors simply followed through on a commitment made by their predecessors. Their predecessors included the TIF, a common economic development practice, in a plan that successfully achieved development of a contaminated, decades-old eyesore in the heart of Brunswick.

While Bath city government used a different form of TIF during development of the hotel that Anastos’ group built in that city in 2009, his firm gained a $387,000 contract to design sidewalks and streetscapes around the hotel. That’s a very similar government-aided competitive advantage to the one for which Anastos lambastes Brunswick officials.

It’s disingenous (sic) for Anastos to blame the Brunswick TIF for hard times at local inns while ignoring the Bath deal. He would be better served by devoting his energy to touting his own properties.

An angry innkeeper alienates guests.

Turns out the editors had done their usual quarter-inch deep research on the subject, and a ‘clarification’ was published a few days later. Even that was not fully accurate.

We submitted a letter on the subject, and didn’t even bother to hold the editor to account for his spelling gaffe. It read thusly:

To the Editor:

On a visit to your web site, I read the item “Hostility trumps hospitality,” published December 12^th.

It addresses hotelier Peter Anastos and the City of Bath, and alludes to ‘a different form of TIF,’ without explaining further.

There are, as you point out, different forms of TIF. For example, some require no application or approval; only the benign neglect or tolerant benevolence of current town councilors and their predecessors.

For a case in point, one prominent Brunswick business, known well to you and your readers, owes more than $220,000 in property taxes, dating back to 2009. This business did nothing to qualify for this ‘tax increment financing,’ other than fail to pay their taxes on time. While not a common form, this ‘TIF’ has benefits similar to other types, in that it defers tax obligations that the rest of us are required to meet.

Others might suggest that the holder of this form of ‘TIF’ is engaged in a quid pro quo with town officials - an exchange for amiable and non-critical reporting on Brunswick town governance. This notion is unseemly, to say the least, so I will not make this claim.

If I did, I’d have to counsel you that editorial hypocrisy alienates readership and advertisers, which could easily lead to declining revenues and the dreaded consequences one might expect.

And even worse, my doing so might cause you to throw a tantrum. Goodness knows Brunswick doesn’t need or want that.

Apparently, the letter got lost in the mail, because we got no response to the initial submission, nor a subsequent inquiry on the letter’s disposition. Must be they’re overwhelmed with reader submissions, or the new web site thingy is driving them bonkers.

(Note: if you can guess who the ‘prominent Brunswick business’ is that owes the $220,000 plus in taxes, you’ll be entered in our drawing for a free one year subscription to Other Side. Losers will be referred to The Ostrich to sign up for a paid one year subscription, in hopes it will help them pay their delinquent taxes.)

Technorati Tags: TIFs,Ostrich,property taxes,hypocrisy

The Ostrich’s webbed footprint; one day at a time.

2011-12-20T21:27:00.001-05:00

We reported here, almost two weeks ago, that our beloved local rag, The Ostrich, is headed down the road of the paperless business model. We could start an office pool about how long they’ll have any business model, but why trouble ourselves?

Something like two and a half years ago, about the time we founded this publication, the folks over on Industry Road who publish said Ostrich gave us a hint as to what was to come.

They had, until that point, a fairly stable web site that carried the most important content from the daily print version, And they had an archive function that was years deep, and which we found very useful for researching various local issues.

The site carried several days of highlights, so you could catch up on things if you hadn’t read the paper in several days, or were out of town.

Suddenly, the archive function was ‘redesigned’ to carry only two weeks of recent content, which means it was no longer an ‘archive’ in any meaningful sense.

For us, this diminished the already marginal value of the web site, if not the print version, to the near worthless level. None-the-less, we were still able to visit the site every week or so, and skim the major stories and op-ed page content of recent days.

So much for that.

With their latest enhancement, The Ostrich has decided to live up to, or should we say exceed, our very low expectations.

The latest version of their web site, which will cost you $89.95 per year for full access come January 1st, has one day’s content, and that’s it. So if you don’t check the site every day, you’ll be completely shut out from yesterday’s news. Which, come to think of it, is their specialty.

We suppose there’s a method to their madness; they want to force you to come to their web page every publishing day, thereby increasing their ‘hit count’ so they can maximize their internet based ad revenue.

Good luck with that. We sure love going out of our way to read advertising on the web, and expect you do too.

We’ve also noticed that their archive feature is now even more useless than it has been in recent years, which is almost impossible. Unless you’re trying to alienate whatever is left of your readership as you exit the publishing world.

Damn; how are we going to keep current with Paul Krugman and the other balanced viewpoints they publish?

Don’t worry; we’ll find a way. And save money in doing so. Like we’ve said before, we don’t recommend paying for a year in advance; that creates risky financial exposure.

If you just can’t control your addiction, at least don’t pay for more than a week at a time. Or tell them you’ll pay after the service is delivered, not before.

Or even better, after they pay up on their property taxes. That would be ‘journalistic justice,’ to coin a phrase.

Technorati Tags: Ostrich,property taxes

"Eid Mubarak,” loyal readers.

2011-12-13T22:49:00.001-05:00

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to those of you who stop by our festive and well decked publication. (It wouldn’t make much sense to wish this to those who don’t come by, would it?)

To get you in the spirit, we offer this Christmas Greeting photo from our distant past:

We delivered this litter of 9 English Springer Spaniel puppies in our home, with the help of our kids. The delivery and weeks that followed were quite a circus.

So much for making nice. We want to tell you about an ‘incident’ with our wonderful US Postal Service. Mrs. Poppycock traveled to the local branch to buy some Christmas Stamps for our outgoing cards.

She was offered Kwanza stamps, Chanukah Stamps, and Madonna and Child Stamps. She said she just wanted ‘ordinary’ Christmas Stamps, perhaps something with a Christmas Tree.

She was offered this stamp -

and mindful of the line waiting, she took it to be a stylized, ‘artsy’ Christmas Tree. She made her purchase and came home.

Your correspondent noticed them on the kitchen counter and decided to take a look. What we found, on closer examination was this:

When we told the missus that she had purchased Islamic themed stamps, she was incredulous. After we applied smelling salts, and lifted her back to a vertical position, she jumped in her sleigh, and headed back to the Post Office and asked to exchange the stamps for something else.

Ever helpful, the person she spoke to said “we’re not exchanging them.” Admirably persistent, our spouse finally got another counter agent to make the exchange, which cost her about a half hour of personal time, not to mention the wear and tear and fuel for her sleigh.

Not long after she returned, she was telling her friend about this, and you guessed it, she had also come home with the Eid stamps without realizing it. Said friend went through the line twice at the in-town branch trying to exchange the stamps, but had no luck. So she headed to the satellite branch on the other side of town, where they were easily traded in.

We wonder how many of you were sold the same stamps, and without realizing it, sent off your Christmas cards carrying an Islamic holiday salute.

Lest you think this is a multicultural, politically correct ‘Christmas Holiday’ stamp, the Postal Service issued it in August, well before even the most ambitious card senders might need it.

You may be wondering just what “Eid” is. According to Wikipedia, it is an Arabic word for festival, and there are two such festivals:

Eid ul-Fitr (Arabic: عيد الفطر ‘īdu l-fiṭr "Festival of the Fast Breaking"), marks the end of the month of Ramadan.

Eid al-Adha (Arabic: عيد الأضحى ‘īdu l-’aḍḥā "Festival of the Sacrifice"), Greater Eid, or Eid-e Qurban , celebrated to commemorate prophet Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son for God.

We trust the recipients of your cards, should you have sent them off with this stamp, will receive it with good cheer and thanks that you would remember them in such a distinctive way.

We can’t wait to hear how it goes; please report back to us.

And prepare yourself for Eid Mubarak greetings sometime in the coming year(s) in response. This is the greeting used by muslims during the two holidays described above.

You might worry that Eid Mubarak cards will be hard to find, but don’t shortchange the USPS, which needs all the revenue generators it can muster.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that. They could of course come up with another special stamp that would be a big seller:

You can decide which would add more cheer to your cards.

Technorati Tags: Postal Service,Eid,Christmas Stamps

So which is it, MSHA: did you over-spec, or did your developer over-price?

2011-12-12T18:59:00.001-05:00

You may have come across this item published on the Bangor Daily News website yesterday; it provides some ‘closure’ to a contentious public discussion about a particularly pricey ‘affordable housing’ project under the auspices of the Maine State Housing Authority.

Controversial Elm Terrace development gets OK at $265K per unit

By Kevin Miller, BDN Staff
Posted Dec. 11, 2011, at 5:52 p.m.

The head of the Maine State Housing Authority has approved plans for a low-income housing complex in Portland for $265,000 per unit, roughly $50,000 below an earlier cost estimate that has sparked a political showdown with state Treasurer Bruce Poliquin.

Dale McCormick, director of MaineHousing, said Sunday evening that she signed a letter of commitment with the developer late last week to construct a 38-unit Elm Terrace complex after the developer managed to lower the costs from $314,000 per unit.

“It has been approved to go forward and that happened because they found the $50,000 in cost savings that we said they had to find,” McCormick said.

Included in the report is this bizarre statement that perfectly embodies the logical and moral divide between private sector taxpayers and government benefactors in the public sector:

McCormick said there are reasons why affordable housing complexes cost more to build….

Excuse me?? ‘How dare they’ doesn’t even begin to capture the ‘we’re not like you, we’re the government’ arrogance endemic to such agencies.

Tough at it is, we’ll put that aspect of this discussion aside, and instead, dazzle you with a blinding flash of the obvious. We must ask MSHA officials how the price per unit suddenly and inexplicably dropped from $314,000 to $265,000.

Specifically, has the scope of the Elm Street Project been reduced to drive the price down, or is the scope being held firm?

If MSHA took $50,000 in scope out of each unit, why was there this much unnecessary content in supposedly 'affordable housing' for 'low income' families? Was this a gold plated, green agenda 'statement' project, at the cost of more housing units for the needy?

Or was the developer about to sign a deal for a price inflated by $50,000 per unit, and if so, how could this be allowed to happen?

As the saying goes, we report, you decide. From where we sit, there doesn’t seem to be an answer that doesn’t make ‘somebody’ look bad.

And ‘somebody’ works at MSHA.

Technorati Tags: MSHA,affordable housing,Maine

How dare they??

2011-12-11T19:31:00.001-05:00

We’ve been sitting here today watching football, napping, and feeding the fire. The Pats got kind of lucky; they didn’t look like a commanding presence on the field. The Packers look like they are. We predict an unfavorable playoff outcome for our New England team.

No matter the distractions available to us, including snuggling with the pups, we couldn’t seem to avoid thinking on the MSHA issue. You know the posts we’ve published in recent days, and if you don’t, we’re not going to force them upon you now.

What really got to us as we tried to relax is the ‘how dare they’ aspect of this situation.

Here we have 140 plus bureaucrats, all of whom earn well above the average income for Maine residents, who have Cadillac benefits, and who have job security beyond the imaginating of all who don’t work for government. And with all these advantages, they cloak themselves in the moral superiority of ‘public service.’

How dare they.

Even worse, they have the incredible arrogance to use their taxpayer funded web site to complain about their compensation.

How dare they, times two.

To make things worse, their so-called leaders are going public expressing umbrage over efforts to examine and rationalize their stewardship of vast sums of other people’s money. They’ve been dispensing, by their own account, more than $1 Billion in federal funds per year. And spending who knows how much more on their operations and other expenses.

‘Witch hunt,’ they and their big government disciples, activists, and ‘non-profit’ crornies are quick to proclaim. Their enablers in the mainstream media attack any such efforts as a war on the homeless.

How dare they, times ten.

This whole snafu is a case study, nay, a poster child for what government by bleeding hearts and busybodies has given us in the way of ‘unsustainability.’

Personally, we don’t buy any of the rhetoric about cutting them some slack or claiming ‘we don’t understand'.’ We’ve had it up to here with the bloviation emanating from entrenched bureaucrats and career hacks.

For now, we’ll leave you with this previously posted, pithy essay that perfectly captures the attitudinal pathology at MSHA.

==========================================

Nobody spends somebody else’s money as carefully as he spends his own.

Ever wonder about those stories of $600
hammers and $800 toilet seats that the
government sometimes buys? You could walk
the length and breadth of this land and not
find a soul who would say he’d gladly spend his
own money that way. And yet this waste often
occurs in government and occasionally in other
walks of life, too.

Why? Because invariably, the
spender is spending somebody else’s money.

Economist Milton Friedman elaborated
on this some time ago when he pointed
out that there are only four ways to spend
money.

When you spend your own money
on yourself, you make occasional mistakes,
but they’re few and far between. The
connection between the one who is earning
the money, the one who is spending it, and
the one who is reaping the final benefit is
pretty strong, direct and immediate.

When you use your money to buy someone
else a gift, you have some incentive to get
your money’s worth, but you might not
end up getting something the intended
recipient really needs or values.

When you use somebody else’s money to
buy something for yourself, such as lunch
on an expense account, you have some
incentive to get the right thing, but little
reason to economize.

Finally, when you spend other people’s
money to buy something for someone
else, the connection between the earner,
the spender and the recipient is the most
remote — and the potential for mischief
and waste is the greatest.

Think about it — somebody spending somebody else’s
money on yet somebody else. That’s what
government does all the time.

But this principle is not just a commentary
about government. I recall a time, back in the
1990s, when the Mackinac Center took a close
look at the Michigan Education Association’s
self-serving statement that it would oppose
any competitive contracting of any school
support service (like busing, food or custodial)
by any school district anytime, anywhere.

We discovered that at the MEA’s own posh,
sprawling East Lansing headquarters,
the union did not have its own full-time,
unionized workforce of janitors and food
service workers. It was contracting out all of
its cafeteria, custodial, security and mailing
duties to private companies, and three out of
four of them were nonunion!

So the MEA — the state’s largest union of
cooks, janitors, bus drivers and teachers —
was doing one thing with its own money and
calling for something very different with
regard to the public’s tax money.

Nobody — repeat, nobody — spends someone else’s
money as carefully as he spends his own.

==========================================

There you go. And as we’ve seen on numerous bumper stickers on Subarus, Volvos, and Piouses around town over the years,

“If you aren’t angry, you aren’t paying attention.”

Which is just the way the ‘public servants’ at MSHA like it.

Technorati Tags: MsHA,State government,affordable housing,public service arrogance

More ‘firsts’ for Maine

2011-12-10T18:50:00.001-05:00

Depending on how you define ‘first,’ that is, especially as it relates to whether you have the page right side up or upside down.

By now, you may already have heard about or seen the 2011 Forbes report on the best states for business and careers. Just in case you haven’t, though, we want to pass it along.

We’ve got plenty of ‘don’t worry, be happy’ types around here, and in our state overall. Fine. But ignoring our systemic economic challenges, and that whether you like it or not, states are in competition with each other, is whistling past the ash heap of history.

So take a look at the data in this report. Any such summary survey is bound to have margins of error, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t pay attention to the outcomes, especially when they track pretty consistently with other sources and prior year results.

You can rationalize that your doctor or nurse didn’t take your blood pressure exactly by the book, but if the numbers are elevated year after year, you’d be a fool to ignore them, wouldn't you? You can think of the numbers in the Forbes report as Maine’s annual checkup and go from there.

In this case, instead of two numbers, there are six. Rankings in business costs, labor supply, regulatory environment, economic climate, growth prospects, and quality of life. These are combined to come up with an overall ranking for the 50 (or is it 57??) states.

Whoopee, Maine ranks first overall! At least if you hold the page upside down. If you don’t, we rank dead last.

Why? Because we rank 44th in business costs; 28th in labor supply; 45th in regulatory environment; 42nd in economic climate; 50th in growth prospects; and 17th in quality of life.

Based on what we’ve observed in the way of public opinion over our years here, we’re confident that many area and state residents find the last place ranking overall, and the last place ranking in growth prospects, perfectly to their liking.

Why? Because they can’t see beyond next year. And they think that Maine’s ‘quality of place,’ touted by the anti-growth, anti free-market, big government crowd trumps every other consideration.

We assume they don’t have children and grandchildren they’d like to see stay here and build their futures where they were born and raised. We also assume they are immune to the risks of high blood pressure.

We’ll close with this: ponder the difference between ‘quality of place’ and ‘quality of life.’ And what factors contribute to each.

If you think they are the same thing, you probably don’t come here often.

And you aren’t very good at remembering to take your blood pressure medicine, if you even have any.

Technorati Tags: Maine,state rankings,Forbes

Are you getting YOUR ‘fair share,’ fella?

2011-12-10T17:56:00.001-05:00

Hey there, Bucky, this is the old Poppycock philosopher with some questions for you.

Assuming you’re still working, are you being paid enough? Are you friend?

Look at that; almost everyone has their hand up! Not much surprise there.

Next question: if you had control of your employer’s web site, would you proclaim on it, for all the world to see, how underpaid you are?

Well…what happened? No hands up; you’re not so brave when it comes to criticizing your employer on his own web site, for all the world to see, are you?

Not everybody is as sheepish as you, friend, when it comes to speaking up. To prove the point, consider the Maine State Housing Authority, about which we’ve posted many times.

We hear a lot about not ‘paying our fair share’ these days, as the federal government tries to find a plausible excuse for spending way beyond their means. But our friends at MSHA are out there publicly proclaiming that they aren’t getting their fair share, and they’re happy to tell you why.

Just visit this page at their web site. You’ll find such as this:

The Maine Department of Labor published three salaries for each position: average, experienced, and those in the top 10% of the field. MaineHousing employees with less than 5 years experience in their position are compared with the average market salary, those with 5 to 20 years of experience in their position are compared to the experienced market salary, and those with more than 20 years experience in their position are compared to the top 10% of their field.

MaineHousing salaries average 15% below the average market salaries for the same position. (The salaries for the 20 employees who were employed at MaineHousing for less than a year were not factored.)

When experience is taken into account, MaineHousing salaries fall to 25.7% below the comparable market position with the same level of experience.

Note that what most would consider ‘entry level’ employees, those with less than 5 years experience, are compared with ‘average’ market salary. No rigging the outcome here, right?

If you want position by position ‘proof,’ you can look at individual salaries.

What term is appropriate here: unmitigated gall? Brass ones? Big cajones? The nerve of some people?

Polite language is ineffective at characterizing the chutzpah of government employees brash enough to complain about their compensation on their agency web site. Where they gush about addressing the needs of the less fortunate.

We bet those using the web site to find the help they need to get by are just thrilled to see the list of salaries used to emphasize staff complaints! Great expression of compassion, folks.

This is the same MSHA whose compensation growth in recent years was publicized by the Maine Open Government activity at the Maine Heritage Policy Center, based on information provided by MSHA itself. Staff compensation there has increased by 30% in the most recent five years:

Do you find this troubling, friend? Well lift your head up high, and tell everyone you’ll never give up -- that ship!

But don’t expect those at MSHA to be troubled, because they’ll say you just don’t understand the difference between the public sector and the private sector. That you don’t appreciate their sacrifice as ‘public servants.’

We don’t know about you, but the staff here at Side sure as hell doesn’t understand.

We don’t understand why those with all the benefits, job security, and absence of competition of government employment can grumble about their circumstances.

And we are pretty sure we never, ever will.

Technorati Tags: MSHA,fair share,compensation

The Ostrich: going “paper”- less

2011-12-09T21:13:00.001-05:00

It’s been some time since we’ve had anything worthy of note to report about The Ostrich, or as it’s known locally, The Brunswick Bleep Bleep.

We’ve commented on their efforts in a number of posts over the years, and for those of you so inclined, you can catch up by going here. The number of items may seem overwhelming, but their history is lengthy, and it takes this kind of coverage to document how much they’ve meant to us in recent years.

Beyond their editorial bias, and their self-important conceit as ‘government watchdogs,’ we’ve been most interested in their failure to pay their ‘fair share’ in the form of assessed property taxes. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

We can only imagine what the consequences would be if we didn’t pay our property taxes on time, and we don’t intend to find out. We suppose that makes us wimpy suckers, at least compared to the owners of The Ostrich, who have continued to operate as the self-appointed conscience of the community, while being tens of thousands of dollars in arrears on their obligations. (We’ll research the latest figures, and report them when we get them.)

We should expect such forbearance from town officials for the local elites, of whom the Bleep Bleep is a charter member. The Bleep Bleep could slam the officials in print in a Brunswick minute if they were not given wide latitude in tax matters.

Gotcha scoring favors the Bleep Bleep, especially since the town already owns one vacated newspaper facility. Owning two might set a world record, not to mention heaping shame on those involved.

We don’t need to remind you that we asked the Bleep Bleep to continue to deliver our paper on a daily basis, even though we had not renewed our subscription, as a quid pro quo for us paying our property taxes on time and carrying them in their delinquency status.

We could gloat and be petty about this. As juvenile as such behavior would be, it is more than warranted in this case, so we’ll go with it.

Now the news. It turns out that The Ostrich has decided to go with an on-line emphasis. A few years back, they redesigned their web site to eliminate the most useful feature it had at that time: a several year deep archive feature, which made researching their coverage on local issues fairly convenient. They ‘modernized’ by changing the archive feature to a two week history.

When they did, they kept the print edition pretty much as it was up to that time. While we could no longer use their web site for any useful research purposes, we occasionally visited to see what their view of important local events was. We could do this in a minute or two, given the shallowness of their coverage; but we could do it at no cost.

Well, friends and enemies, those days are coming to an end. Today, The Ostrich announced that the on-line version of the Bleep Bleep will cost $89.95 a year to read, only slightly less than what they used to charge for a print subscription. The good news is that the web version will be complete with advertisements,etc. Good move on their part; consumers have been flocking to the web to pay for content, especially advertisements.

Why didn’t we think of that?

In their own words, here’s what your ninety bucks a year will buy:

The new design will expand options for readers and advertisers by providing all of the content from each day’s newspaper online — in a format easily accessible on home computers, mobile devices and tablets.
Every story, photo, advertisement, news brief, column, comic and feature that now appears in print will be available online daily, effective Dec. 15. Honor rolls, police logs and other items that previously only appeared in print — and which readers asked us to post online — will be fully available on the upgraded website.

We wish them the same success they’ve had recently with their print version. We‘re confident they wish the same for us.

Our advice to you, just like it was some months ago, is that should you choose to sign up for the service, don’t pay for a year in advance. Since they don’t pay their taxes on time, there’s no reason they should have your cold hard cash in advance.

And don’t believe the rumors that John Corzine reportedly contacted the Bleep Bleep to see if they are for sale. Even he is bright enough, if not honest enough, to know their future is as solid as a snowflake’s.

Technorati Tags: Ostrich,property taxes,newspapers

Stew: the missing link

2011-12-08T18:34:00.001-05:00

There’s nothing like a bubbling caldron of stew, especially now that winter is here, if not by the calendar, by the thermometer.

But dad-gummit, your reporter once again failed to include all the ingredients that prove the common links in the recipes described in our post just the other day.

While our efforts are usually flawless, at least in our opinion, we do have a persistent and maddening habit of coming up with more thoughts after posting an essay. Sometimes minutes later, sometimes days later. And here we come again.

We suggested that a ‘common theme’ united Betsy, the MSHA, and the federal government, making them ‘peas in a pod.’

We remain firm in that conviction; and to emphasize our point, add this common property: good intentions. Nothing works so well to justify and rationalize otherwise absurd behavior, actions, spending, and programs as the tried and true ‘we care more’ shibboleth.

We’re sure Betsy believes that spending a quarter million or so on global and gender studies will help her make the world a better place, eliminating racism, class warfare, and human rights abuse. And thereby justifying a claim on OPM to cover the costs of her ‘education.’

Good intentions, thy name is Betsy.

Moving on, is there any doubt that the 143 people working at MSHA have good intentions? How could providing affordable housing for the needy, no matter how much it costs, be anything other than a pure and noble pursuit?

Lastly, we turn to Washington. As we all know, the federal government is motivated by fairness and economic and social justice. Questioning the motives of our benevolent ruling class relegates one to the mean-spirited detention room.

The common attributes thus become clearer: spending OPM, lubricated by the moral superiority of good intentions.

The only open question at the moment is this: have you paid your fair share today?

If you haven’t, we’d be happy to drop by and pick up your check. You can make it out to ‘the greater good,’ a subsidiary of Poppycock Enterprises.

Technorati Tags: good intentions,OPM,government

Stewing, a la OPM

2011-12-07T21:50:00.001-05:00

You know what stew is, we assume: a slowly cooked mixture of various ingredients in which the individual components meld to create a blend of greater complexity and satisfying flavors.

Here at Side, we love the comforting aroma of simmering stew, and most of all, slurping down the final result.

Which now that we read our own words, makes this introduction of our thesis tortured to say the least, and absurd at the worst. Oh well, everyone should do what they do best, and we do stupid metaphors as well as anyone.

So let’s segue into the meat of the matter on our cutting board. We’ve been stewing for several days on the subjects of MSHA, the youth that supposedly comprise our future, our unmanageable public debt, and the reckless deficit spending in spite of it.

We find them all to be harmonious ingredients, united by a common theme. Let us explain.

Let us begin with Betsy, exemplar of our future, as described in this prior post. We cited this Coastal Journal passage:

For Betsy (redacted,) who is from Brunswick and is studying global and gender issues at New York City's New School, the Occupy movement goes beyond economic frustration. Like a lot of college students and graduates, she and her mother are deep in debt to financial institutions that funded her education. She (sic) believes, however, the Occupy movement also involves human rights issues, class warfare, and racism. She has participated in Occupy protests in New York.

We looked into the details, and learned that tuition alone at The New School is $35,000 a year. Add living and eating in New York, plus all the party expenses, and you’re probably looking at close to $50,000 a year, or $200,000 for a degree, unless you go the 5 year route, in which case you’re staring at a cool quarter million.

All so Betsy can study pointless prattle like this:

Gender's meaning changes. In other words, the culturally constructed idea of what sex difference means is unstable and is often renegotiated over time and from place to place. To study gender is to study a central category of identity that shapes basic structures such as:

divisions of public and private

the distribution of wealth and patterns of labor

the ways in which gender is represented in art, literature, and popular culture

how sexuality and the body are understood

definitions of sickness and health

the creation of norms for public life and the state

the production of knowledge itself

Courses in Gender Studies are one way to understand the ideologies, social patterns, and images that shape the changing world in which we live. Gender Studies raises questions about how the gender divide is formed and maintained, and how it is often resisted or undermined. Students explore gender scholarship from the last four decades in the United States and rest of the world. It includes courses about the history of feminist thought and action; men’s studies; gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender studies; and queer theory. Working in conjunction with the program on Race and Ethnicity, these programs explore the many intersections among race, class, and gender.

Imagine spending and borrowing more than the median price of a home in Maine to immerse yourself in studies that prepare you for nothing other than teaching the same twaddle to those as gullible as you. (Need we remind you the word gullible is not in the dictionary?)

We are convinced that Betsy and her mother, considering the other ‘affordable’ options they had, signed up for this crushing debt in the belief that the tooth fairy, or perhaps the fairy godmother, would come to their rescue. We expect they hold a tacit belief the government should pay for her education, and that a benevolent agent of hope will ride to their rescue and bail them out with, you guessed it: OPM.

Strange as this may sound, the Maine State Housing Authority is known to spend more than this on an ‘affordable housing’ apartment. So it’s all relative when it comes to borrowing, government, and the thirst for knowledge, useless or otherwise, and the pursuit of the common good. They all are addicted to the drug of choice: OPM. Say it slowly; Oh-Pi-M.

Is there any doubt that if Betsy gets to Congress one day, she’ll support borrowing the country into oblivion because ‘it’s the right thing to do?’ What other choice could she make if she doesn’t have enough common sense in her young adult years to avoid chaining herself down with unmanageable debt, with the support of her mother? Unless they expect someone else to bail her out?

Which brings us to the third corner of this triangulation scheme: the federal government itself. High on their own self-importance and lust for remaining in power, our so called leaders are busy spending over 60% more than they have in revenue, making up the difference with Monopoly money and debt we will never be able to repay. In the process, they are driving us down a greased death spiral that leads to almost certain collapse for the American experiment in liberty, self-determination, and self-government.

Coming full circle from our silly introduction, we arrive at a conclusion that Betsy, the MSHA, and our federal government are all alike. They are ‘peas in a pod,’ to extend our original thought.

Which doesn’t make for a very tasty stew, unless you can compel other people to give whatever they have to bail out your supper.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

It is my belief that the writer, the free-lance author, should be and must be a critic of the society in which he lives. It is easy enough, and always profitable, to rail away at national enemies beyond the sea, at foreign powers beyond our borders who question the prevailing order. But the moral duty of the free writer is to begin his work at home; to be a critic of his own community, his own country, his own culture. If the writer is unwilling to fill this part, then the writer should abandon pretense and find another line of work: become a shoe repairman, a brain surgeon, a janitor, a cowboy, a nuclear physicist, a bus driver. -Edward Abbey, naturalist and author (1927-1989)

Our choices are pretty clear, according to Mr. Abbey. But we can’t help wondering why he didn’t mention the option of becoming a chef.

Technorati Tags: youth,our future,MSHA,government

The Disability Business, and Maine

2011-12-03T09:17:00.001-05:00

Little more than a week ago, the Wall Street Journal published an article about apparent hanky-panky on the part of an administrative judge in the Social Security Administration. You can find it here.

(We apologize for not being able to link you to the complete article; the link worked fine several days ago, but now only gives the abbreviated version. We’ll keep working to find the full item for readers.)

The article included a US map, in which the percentage of disability recipients by state is shown:

Of note is the fact that Maine is in the top rank of states when it comes to recipients. This comports well with personal but unscientific observations on a day to day basis. These include our visits to the SSA office in Portland to sign up for Medicare a few years back. On both trips, we were surprised to find the majority of clients in the office were not seniors like us. And to the eye, they virtually all appeared able-bodied.

What really is galling in the subject article is the record of one particular judge, and one particular attorney he seemed to enjoy “working with:”

……….In 2010, he awarded benefits in all but four of 1,284 decisions. In 2011, before he was put on leave, Mr. Daugherty awarded benefits in all but two of the 1,003 cases he decided. Typically, judges award benefits in about 60% of their cases.

……….about Mr. Daugherty's high award rates and the number of cases he would assign himself from a Kentucky attorney, Eric C. Conn. The Social Security Administration in 2010 paid Mr. Conn $3.8 million in fees for winning benefits for his clients…..

Not bad money for appearing before a judge who seemed predisposed to find in your client’s favor virtually all the time. We don’t mean to disparage disabled folks who qualify for and deserve the benefits. But we’ve long believed that if there is a large, and virtually unlimited vault full of public money accessible to the citizenry, eventually careers will be built and people will get very rich raiding the kitty.

In this particular case, if you grab a pencil and paper and look at the numbers, you conclude that the judge and his attorney friend were making disposition of 4, 5 or maybe even more cases per day, depending on how many days they actually processed cases.

Result: Judge finds for the applicant. Attorney collects oh, say $3,000 for 2 or 3 hours of his work, and 6 hours of paralegal staff work. A person could make a living doing this!

Is this typical? We can’t say, but it does demonstrate how easy it apparently is to work the system while seemingly doing good. And there simply aren’t enough auditors and other investigators to monitor the perhaps millions of transactions that take place each day in which funds from the public treasury are sought for a bewildering and overwhelming collection of purposes and clients. It’s what we get when we allow government to grow more or less without limits.

A bit of looking into things gives a hint at how the system is biased. We found this on an SSA web site:

Disability is something most people do not like to think about. But the chances that you will become disabled probably are greater than you realize. Studies show that a 20-year-old worker has a 3 in 10 chance of becoming disabled before reaching full retirement age.

IN other words, the government is biased towards an expectation that 30% of the public will eventually collect disability. If you dig a little further, you’ll find the list of impairments that will qualify one for disability. This reads like they are encouraging everyone to consider applying for benefits

It's hard to imagine that an attorney who specializes in such matters would have a hard time finding something under which his client should qualify, and easily send his government administrator into a kerfuffle of confusion. Especially if the burden is on a civil servant to prove that an applicant has not a single one of the listed impairments sufficient to qualify.

Wonder why we have government employment growing steadily while the private sector is struggling? Wonder why government spending and public debt are at unsustainable levels and growing like uncontrolled wild fires?

Wonder no more, mon amis. The answer lies ‘not in the stars, but in ourselves,’ to borrow a famous passage.

Technorati Tags: Maine,disability,social security administration

Friday Frivolities, Part Deux

2011-12-02T18:31:00.001-05:00

You can file this addendum in the stuff file cabinet, under PSMIS.

That stands for “Please, Someone, Make It Stop!” And put it in the Bowdoin College sub-folder.

Some of you know that we publish here as ‘P. C. Poppycock.’ P. C., as it turns out, are this reporter’s real first initials. They also stand for politically correct, a pox upon our land. Poppycock means nonsense, and its synonyms include:

babble, balderdash, baloney, bull*, bunk, drivel, empty talk, foolery, foolishness, gibberish, hogwash, hooey, hot air, jive, malarkey, mumbo jumbo, palaver, prattle, rubbish, silliness, trash.

Hence our nom-de-plume is part eponymous and part pseudonymous.

P. C. Poppycock is exactly what came to mind as we glanced at today’s Bowdoin Orient, the campus student newspaper. Page 1 features an article titled Sexual assault allegations stir Colby, no doubt published with considerable glee by Orient staff.

There are some telling, to say the least, pronouncements by Colby officials in the article (emphasis ours):

The allegations have sparked dialogue across Colby's campus. Colby President William Adams wrote to the student body in an email, "These are deeply troubling allegations that have far-reaching impacts on our community. And I know we are all concerned about whether the campus climate encourages or excuses behaviors that are antithetical to our community values."

Antithetical to our community values??? It takes the unmitigated gall to say this that only a modern day liberal academic could possess. As anyone familiar with campus culture these days knows, college community values are sex any time, all the time, with anyone, no questions asked, no gooey relationships needed. Preferably with copious amounts of 'substances' as lubrication.

And then there’s this:

The dialogue continued at a large event held in Colby's Page Commons on November 15. A notice from Colby's Vice President of Student Affairs and Dean of Students James Terhune explained that the purpose of the event was exploring "how Colby deals with sexual misconduct."

Exploring how you deal with sexual misconduct? What is this, a safari? Or a first in history occurrence? Pure academic psycho-babble that fully exhibits why we have the culture we do; so called leaders are at the bleeding edge of societal dumbing down through language abuse heaped on top of all the other forms of intellectual abuse present on our campuses.

Both, we submit, are fine examples of P. C. Poppycock. But that’s just us, although we have little choice in who to be.

As a second addendum candidate, we noted a Security Report in the Orient that perfectly illustrates, in our opinion, the thoughts we expressed on college students in our post earlier today. Unfortunately, we can’t find it on the web version of the paper. If we did, it would help you end your day with a laugh followed by a moment of somber reflection.

Since we can’t give you the whole article, we’ll just offer a few prize-winners; keep in mind these are items officially reported to and by the Bowdoin Office of Safety and Security:

- An intoxicated student vandalized the paper towel and soap dispensers in a Smith Union men’s room.

- A student was escorted to Parkview Adventist Medical Center after he slipped on a wet floor in Coles Tower and cut his eyebrow. (Couldn’t he had waited until the next day to trim his eyebrow?)

- A student at Stowe Inn reported being disturbed by noise from a nearby room.

Surely there’s a cause for protest or cries for social injustice somewhere in these reports.

One thing’s for sure; this ain’t your father’s college campus.

And you know what? It ain’t mine either.

We conclude with a burning question: the next time our grandkids visit, can we call the Brunswick ‘campus’ police to report being “disturbed by noise from a nearby room?”

Technorati Tags: Bowdoin College,college kids,political correctness,balderdash

Friday Frivolities

2011-12-02T16:23:00.001-05:00

A Frosty’s Return: Could it be???

As we strolled the ample sidewalks of downtown Brunswick on our way to lunch today, we noted, surprise of surprises, an ‘under contract’ sign in the window of the long closed Frosty’s Donut Shop.

This matches up with something we heard from a ‘little bird’ who visits the Other Side ‘feeder’ from time to time for a few grains of corn and other tasty offerings. The ‘bird’ says the sales contract reportedly calls for the current shop owner to teach the buyer how to make classic Frosty’s offerings, for which we have long pined.

Could it be true? Could we be noshing on twists or cinnamon swirl coffee buns or jelly donuts in mere weeks or months? You can count on us to keep an eye out on your behalf, and report to you as soon as something tangible occurs. And don’t worry; if the shop does reopen, we’ll put our eye back in.

Given our years of loyalty to the shop while it was open, we wouldn’t be surprised if we detect the aroma of dough frying in hot oil before any other indication.

Even if we do live four or five miles away. Our schnozola has been well trained for just such purposes.

Local Occupiers: the past and the ‘future’ on display

In keeping with our usual habit, we surveyed the latest print media offerings as we chomped away on our Big Top lunch.

The lead article ‘above the fold’ in this week’s Coastal Journal is about ‘Occupiers’ in our local area. In our view, the top level message in the article is that the well-known and oft-seen peace and anti-war groups in our area, largely composed of those in the older generations, are attempting to ride the latest media white horse by claiming ‘solidarity’ with the mostly younger ‘occupiers.’

Many of the local occupiers are stumbling all over themselves in their nearby encampments, embarrassing the concept of ‘protest.’ Public drunks, dopers, and common criminals don’t seem like the best choices for our local sign carriers, dialoguers, and face painters to align with, given that your friends say an awful lot about you. But the usual suspects aren’t given to circumspection in such matters, are they?

Marching on, a few specific passages in the article (besides the oh so tired and typical BIW Destroyer comments) particularly tweaked our usually well controlled cynicism, and we are compelled to pass them along for your consideration and reflection.

Brunswick resident Joe (redacted) said that while Americans are typically greedy, he thinks people deserve a lot in life they can't get.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, over. That’s either one of the most inscrutable comments we’ve read in a long time, or an example of incompetent reporting and editing. Or, more likely, a combination of both, considering those involved.

Here’s another telling example:

Dan (redacted) is Mike's son, and is a graduate student at the University of Maine studying peace and reconciliation.

“All of these issues are connected,” he said, referencing Mahatma Ghandi, who spoke of economic violence and of his studies. “The one percent on top of the hierarchy exploits everyone else.”

We can’t help but wonder what the job prospects for young Dan will be upon graduation, other than carrying signs at protests. Joblessness stemming from poor choices would, however, put him in real solidarity with the occupiers. Unless that is, he intends to exploit everyone else by charging for his counsel.

Here’s another example of a total lack of common sense, or if you prefer, cluelessness amidst our current generation of college students:

For Betsy (redacted,) who is from Brunswick and is studying global and gender issues at New York City's New School, the Occupy movement goes beyond economic frustration. Like a lot of college students and graduates, she and her mother are deep in debt to financial institutions that funded her education. She (sic) believes, however, the Occupy movement also involves human rights issues, class warfare, and racism. She has participated in Occupy protests in New York.

Good luck, Betsy, on finding a job as a global gender specialist, or analyst, or whatever (hamburger flipper?) once you graduate. That’s a fine choice of major, right up there with pursuing government dependency studies. Perhaps you’re minoring in the latter, since we have a hunch you believe that other people (id est, taxpayers) should be funding your education, even though there were a lot less expensive options open to you, and majors that might actually prepare you to make your own way after graduation.

Call us unjust and insensitive, but we don’t have a bit of sympathy to spare on those who have allowed themselves to be sent down the primrose path of aimlessness, often with the encouragement of their parents.

While we’re snickering a bit as we write this, sadness is overwhelming our funny bone. You’ll come to your own conclusions, but ours is that we are melting down as a culture and society. Those carrying the heat guns are ‘the children’ who are being deluded and misguided by many of our ‘elders’ in the attitude formation and ‘helping’ fields, especially our government schools and academia.

If these ‘children’ are ‘our future,’ as Yogi Berra famously said, ‘the future ain’t what it used to be.’ And you can take that any way you damn well want to; we doubt you’ll have any questions about how we mean it.

Technorati Tags: occupiers,joblessness,protesters,college students,donuts

Thanksgiving Weekend Diversions…

2011-12-01T18:38:00.001-05:00

Side’s recent publishing slowdown stems from the fact that your correspondent and his frau traipsed off to points south for the Thanksgiving Holiday weekend. We departed on an inconveniently snowy morning, but soon escaped that and enjoyed a relatively mild several days in the greater New York City area, most of which was at our daughter’s house in North Jersey, not far from where we were conceived, delivered, and reared.

The first part of our trip was taking in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Mrs. P wisely elected not to come along, as we were joining in with 3 million or so others who had the same idea. We were coached by a high school classmate of ours on how to go about things.

We met her and her family members at 56th and 7th Avenue, well before the parade began, and only after enduring a ‘train’ ride and a ‘subway’ ride in which the dominant sensation was that of being a sardine. Us ‘seniors’ tried as best we could to coordinate via cell phone, and were left wondering how the modern generation can manage to talk clearly in raucous urban circumstances.

Here we offer two snaps of the famous balloons making their way south along 7th Avenue. They move surprisingly fast, and it’s amazing to note how much preparation takes place, including rotating all the traffic signal arms out of the way, of which there must be thousands. In both photos, the building in the background on the right, behind the ‘Muni-Meter’ sign, is Carnegie Hall.

You know the old joke:

Q: “how do you get to Carnegie Hall?'”

A: “Practice, practice, practice.”

We’re glad we made the effort, and we look forward to enjoying other delights of Manhattan on upcoming trips. Being in the midst of residents of the area, to put it mildly, is ‘entertainment’ in its own right.

Further, we’re resolute in our belief that attending this parade is something best done no more than once, like attending the Rose Bowl. Standing motionless for 3 or more hours, bracketed by high energy commuter trips, left us pretty well wrung out. Enough so that we deferred the gala family turkey feast to the following day. More on that in a subsequent post.

On Saturday of the weekend, we went off in search of an Italian Bakery/Deli we had been given a lead on by a friend here in Brunswick who grew up in North Jersey. It’s called Lotito’s, in Ramsey, just a few miles from the New York State border.

It’s one of those places that you walk into and feel transported – back to your growing up days, and into a world where ethnic ambience and specialties overwhelm you. It’s hard to describe; you really need to experience and wallow in it. Think The Sopranos, combined with Wild Oats, combined with Micucci’s, and that only hints at the pleasure of such places.

Oh how we wish that Maine, and Brunswick in particular, could host and make such places a facet of our ordinary daily lives. Sadly, we don’t have whatever it takes to make it so. We could muse at length at what ‘it takes,’ without ever making sense, so we won’t bother.

Instead, we’ll just make sure we enjoy such places every time we’re down in the land of our youth, to which we feel an increasing connection as the months and years go by. Perhaps you feel the same about where you grew up.

We hope so; feeling this connection has been a great pleasure for us.

Here our some views of what we enjoyed:

We’re tempted to say “eat your heart out,” but we’re worried our Doctors would not take such words in the sense they are intended.

So be it, dear readers.

Technorati Tags: gusto,ethnicity,culture watch

Amtrak Foot Warmer?

2011-11-21T18:35:00.001-05:00

You may have noted when driving by Maine Street Station in recent weeks that concrete work for the boarding platform is under way. Here are a couple of views we took on a recent journey past the area.

There are two widely separated ramps already poured, setting the stage for a rather long spanning platform to accommodate the 100 or so passengers projected to arrive every day by the consultants we use to justify otherwise unjustifiable spending, or more appropriately, speculation with other people’s money.

Whether it’s five trains a day with 20 passengers each, or two trains a day with 50 passengers each, who knows? And whose counting anyway when the funding is ‘free?’

We heard recently that the ramp will be 400 feet long (think a football field plus end zones.) That’s why it’s virtually impossible to capture the grandeur of the entire structure in a single view. Imagine a world class Olympic sprinter needing something like 10 seconds to dash from one end to the other.

And wonder of wonders, we understand that a portion of it will be heated, no doubt to melt snow and prevent ice build-up.

So if you should find yourself in town this winter, and need to get your tootsies nice and toasty, you’ll be able to head on over to the station platform and get them as warm as roasted chestnuts.

For those of you who support the Amtrak ‘experiment’ because it will save the earth by reducing the number of cars on the road, please make sure you revise your calculations to include the energy costs of heating the platform. It might help remind you of why you don’t have a heated driveway to deal with snow and ice.

Here at Side, we’ve had ‘cold feet’ about the whole train thing since it began, convinced it will be a forever subsidized sop to the local constituency, suitable for self-serving publicity events, photos, and grandiose campaign statements, but not much else.

And if you think about it, another income redistribution scheme. Which to many, makes it a wonder of wonders. You know; social and economic justice and all that.

Go figure.

Technorati Tags: Brunswick,Amtrak,trains

MSHA: assorted foot (-in mouth?) notes

2011-11-16T18:37:00.001-05:00

We just can’t stop our trailing thoughts on this subject, so while they are ‘top of mind,’ we’ll expunge them from our troubled braincase by passing them along. Let’s set the stage for today’s commentary with this gem;

It's often the case that when a critic uses an embarrassingly accurate term to describe what a wrong-doer is doing, the wrong-doer protests: "Why don't you use my white-washed, conscience-soothing euphemism?" Such euphemisms, they claim, help promote "civilized debate."

- Steve Kangas

Let’s be honest with each other; the activity we’re discussing isn’t ‘affordable housing’ any more than a ‘free lunch’ is free. In plain and simple English, which is rare these days, we’re talking about government subsidized housing. No more, no less.

Calling it affordable housing is a ‘white washed, conscience-soothing, euphemism,’ and carries the added benefit of making lots of bureaucrats and social justice advocates feel good about themselves, if not morally superior to the realists among us.

In objective economic terms, many of the projects that fall under this heading are actually unaffordable in real market terms. If you’ve ever owned free market rental property, like we have, you know that the operative equation is whether the property can ‘carry itself’ at the very least, and hopefully provide a real return on investment.

In our simple way of thinking, there are three parties involved in this ‘affordable housing’ game (we had to bite our tongue more than once to avoid using the word ‘racket.’) One party is the government, acting as proxy for taxpayers. This party doesn’t particularly care about rational concepts of ‘affordability,’ or return on investment, since it can compel whatever revenue it needs to make the deal work by force of law from we taxpayers.

The second party is a contractor/developer/property manager who decides to enter the ‘affordable housing’ sector as a business opportunity. Think Rosa Scarcelli and Stanford Management, for example, who we referenced in recent posts. As a side-note, they/she ‘have’ three properties right here in Brunswick.

Those who operate such properties are freed from the economic realities of open market, competitively priced rental properties in the region of interest. They know they have a captive, targeted, government subsidized rental client base. If they are developers as well, construction costs are similarly distorted by government involvement and override of market reality, plus various and assorted tax credits, etc.

The third party is the client or tenant, to whom the housing is affordable in relative terms, but only because other persons (taxpayers) subsidize it, no matter how unaffordable it may be in real economic terms.

So why don’t we just call it government subsidized housing? See the quote we opened with above. Some will call us insensitive or impolite for suggesting such a thing. Poppycock; PC terminology like ‘affordable housing’ is insensitive, impolite, and far worse. It disguises the insidious and widespread use of government power to insinuate itself into every aspect of our daily lives, and every square mile of our local landscape. Signs in front of such housing seem benign and vaguely uplifting, instead of reminding us that the heavy hand of government is involved.

Not only that, but it sets the stage for capitol cronyism by which those with the ‘right’ connections can become wealthy without suffering the uncertainties of free markets; perhaps even wealthy enough to finance their own campaigns for high political office.

Wow; we’ve exceeded the expectations we had for ourselves as we began this post, so we need to head for the exit. As we do, we’ll leave you with media coverage of yesterday’s meeting:

Then you can go to this item, which has a link to an audio only report on the meeting.

In one final thought, we can’t help but marvel at the irony that Dale McCormick, MSHA Director since 2005, was formerly Maine State Treasurer for 8 years or so. This is the very same position now held by Bruce Poliquin, who is leading the way in demanding accountability from quasi-governmental ‘authorities’ who manage huge sums of taxpayer funds with virtually no oversight.

If you think the election a year ago didn’t make any difference, you haven’t been paying attention. And it’s time you do, because ‘sunlight,’ even in the dead of winter, is illuminating all sorts of interesting things. Many of which haven’t had to wear sunscreen for decades.

Maybe you should make sure you have a good pair of sunglasses handy, so that when unexpected glare occurs, your ‘eyes’ are protected.

Technorati Tags: MSHA,affordable housing,capitol cronyism

MSHA, affordable housing, and McKeen Street

2011-11-15T19:01:00.001-05:00

We attended the MSHA board meeting today (Tuesday, November 15), and will do our best, which usually isn’t good enough, to keep this report short.

Before we begin the report, however, an item we forgot to include in the ‘lagging thoughts’ post. (See why ‘our best’ isn’t usually good enough?)

Leave it to the government to conclude that $300,000 apartments are ‘affordable,’ when the median housing price in Maine is well below $200,000. Ponder these figures in the context of this recent report, which addresses former Navy housing in Brunswick:

Schott said prices for homes in the McKeen Street tract would likely range from $110,000 to $145,000, where most units have three bedrooms. (emphasis ours)
“It is definitely affordable housing in that range,” Schott said. “There’s not much in that price range in town.”

It occurred to us in this context that most of us wouldn’t think of Cadillacs, BMWs, and Volvos as ‘affordable transportation.’ Or Mercedes Benz, for that matter.

But if government buys these vehicles, and then turns them over to you and I for say, 25% of the purchase price, guess what – they suddenly seem very affordable, don’t they?

Which brings us to the central question here: when a bureaucrat uses the word ‘affordable,’ what do they mean?

Do they mean ‘affordable’ to the provider, in this case the government, which really means we taxpayers, compared to prices in the open marketplace, or do they mean ‘affordable’ to the recipient, after government subsidies are applied? Based on our experience to date, including the meeting today, we are convinced the former is irrelevant in deference to the latter.

So let us summarize our experience today. The ‘open to the public’ meeting was to begin at 9:00 AM. Concerned about the parking situation, we arrived at 8:20, and secured our spot. After 10 minutes or so inspecting the interior of our truckster, we decided to enter the MSHA building, thinking we might get to find a seat in the meeting room and have a cup of coffee.

Dream on, reader. Upon entering the building, we were asked to sign in, and were given a badge, and then told to wait in the lobby area with other arriving members of the public. This did not create a positive first impression. At least we weren’t given full Hazmat suits to put on.

40 minutes later, at 9:10, we were escorted to the elevator and up to the meeting, which was already underway, it appeared. It was standing room only, with perhaps 30 or so general public showing up.

We could be wrong, but our sense is that this is a modern day record for such meetings.

So – what happened? In our view, MSHA staff got a real surprise from the Commissioners in attendance, and also heard from several members of the public, your correspondent included, about project cost profiles that are way out of whack with broader real estate market figures.

Our overall impression is this. As we’ve told you before, we spent our career in the defense industry, and were frequently pummeled by government officials and the public alike over “$400 hammers” and “$600 toilet seats.” Almost without exception, those costs, if even true, are entirely due to government regulations for these items.

Still, we were a business that competed with other businesses, and we had to make a profit to survive. Over the years, we improved our quality and cost profiles to make ourselves more competitive, and to ensure our SURVIVAL.

Today’s meeting revealed an MSHA culture totally devoid of competitive challenges, profit/loss considerations, and survival instincts. You couldn’t avoid the impression this is an organization that believes there is not a single threat to their existence, and even more so, with a public mandate to keep doing what they do exactly as they have been doing it.

In other words, we saw another concrete example of why state and federal governments are in a fiscal crisis beyond any in our history.

At least as we see it. And we’re doing our best to watch.

Technorati Tags: Maine State Housing Authority,affordable housing

MSHA – Lagging thoughts, as usual….

2011-11-14T18:24:00.001-05:00

Some tidbits, in no particular order:

We hear much about ‘crony capitalism’ these days; books on the subject have been written and published. We think the label may be off the mark, so Side hereby coins the term “capitol cronyism” to describe the likes of Rosa Scarcelli’s ‘Stanford Management’ and too many similar enterprises to mention. In these cases, ‘capitalism’ as commonly understood is not involved, but capitols, of both the state and federal type, clearly are. Just to remind you of the scale of such ‘business:’

Rosa Scarcelli currently owns and manages over eighty affordable housing complexes in Connecticut, Maine and Pennsylvania and continues to grow Stanford Management’s affordable housing portfolio. She has managed the development of over $500 million in real estate assets throughout the Eastern United States, and oversees a large staff in several regional offices.

We’re frightened, frankly, as we ponder just how many such ‘under the radar’ government based speculative enterprises exist, operating well outside the normal bounds of free market forces.

Now let’s talk about MSHA operation. We’d sure like to have someone explain the business model from inception to destruction for MSHA projects. Who is the funder? What is the competition process? Who owns and operates the result? Who profits from the project (see Rosa Scarcelli and family)? What form does the $13,000 plus per home for more than 84,000 Maine homes take? is this a permanent arrangement, or does the benefit expire at some point? What are the qualifications to receive the benefit?

In other words, could we please see a flow chart of funds across all stages of MSHA activities?

Moving on, it turns out that the LIHEAP program is run by MSHA; that’s the “Low Income Heating Energy Assistance Program,” and it’s always in the news this time of year. Recently, AARP, that supposed non-partisan organization, is all in a dither over funds available under the program this year, and wants State Government to pony up added dollars to boost the kitty:

AARP urges state support for heat assistance

November 10, 2011 11:36 PM

To the Editor:

....AARP’s Public Policy Institute ... issued a report on winter heating costs...news is not good.

....For New England residents age 65 and older, the average....cost in 2010-11 was $3,058. Projections indicate ... for 2011-12, this will jump almost 10 percent.

.... huge cut to LIHEAP ...will...affect many Mainers... AARP’s sincere hope that Gov. Paul LePage will consider directing part of the state budget toward helping low-income Mainers as they struggle to stay warm.

John Hennessy
AARP Maine Director of Advocacy
Portland

Source

So let’s get this straight: by their own admission, MSHA dishes out more than $1 Billion annually in federal funds, but they don’t have enough for heating cost assistance? More than 84,000 homes getting an average of $13,000 each in ‘services,’ but there isn’t enough for heating costs?

Next subject: interestingly, one of the most prominent items on MSHA’s web site is their report on how the salaries of their more than 100 employees compare to salaries elsewhere:

Each year, the Maine Department of Labor independently compares salaries of many organizations to comparable positions in the total Maine market. Using the labor department’s 2010 data and comparing it to MaineHousing salaries, MaineHousing employees are paid on average 15% below the market.

At the end of the discussion is a link to a list of their salaries compared to ‘the Maine market.’ You can follow up and see what you think.

By the way, for those of you interested in just how much money has been spent by Maine Government in recent years, including federal funds, to address AARP concerns, take a look at this resource:

http://www.maine.gov/legis/ofpr/total_state_budget/history/

It’s awful hard to look at these totals and accept that any aspect of government services is suffering, since total state expenditures have grown and grown over the years, and most of all, the federal component. At a far faster rate than economic output has.

One wonders how many other MSHA type operations there are funneling billions to destinations unknown and lacking in full public disclosure.

More than you know, more than we can guess, we are confident. We better stop here, or the venting could get ugly. Next thing you know, we’d be making up stories about federal subsidies being used to bring trains to Brunswick, whether that makes any sense or not.

Technorati Tags: AARP,affordable housing,MSHA

Urgent: Error in MSHA meeting location…

2011-11-14T09:31:00.001-05:00

In this post the other day, there was a quotation saying the MSHA

Board Meeting, tomorrow, Tuesday, November 15th at 9am, would be held at 55 Water Street in Augusta.

The correct location is 353 Water Street, Augusta, which is the MSHA building.

Sorry for the error; hope we see some of you there.

PS: If you go to google earth, or google maps, it shows 353 Water Street as several blocks below (south) of the State Capitol, yet the MSHA site, and the actual sat picture of the building, show that it is above (north) of the State Capitol. So please be very careful how you find directions to the building.

Technorati Tags: affordable housing

Oh what tangled webs we weave…..an MSHA postscript

2011-11-10T18:56:00.001-05:00

Do any of you remember Rosa Scarcelli, the oh-so-rational sounding independent in the race for Governor of Maine during the election run-ups in 2010?

We had completely forgotten about her until the study of the MSHA topic reminded us of ‘affordable housing.’

Take a look at this, from her web site:

Rosa Scarcelli

Chief Executive Officer

Rosa Scarcelli currently owns and manages over eighty affordable housing complexes in Connecticut, Maine and Pennsylvania and continues to grow Stanford Management’s affordable housing portfolio.

She has managed the development of over $500 million in real estate assets throughout the Eastern United States, and oversees a large staff in several regional offices.

Affordable Housing Finance ranked her company as one of the fifty best affordable housing providers and as one of the ten fastest-growing housing providers in the country.

From the start of her career in 1992, Rosa has passionately devoted herself to real estate. She has since gained well-rounded experience in her industry, mastering such diverse areas as affordable housing, the restoration of historically significant properties and urban renewal.

She has developed properties for both residential and commercial uses, in small rural towns and major metropolitan areas alike.

She received her Bachelor of Arts from Bowdoin College.

Would it surprise you to learn that even we are astonished by what we find when we start to turn over rocks?

And we’re especially heartened by the connection to our own local Ivory Tower.

Pogo, please call Poppycock Media at your earliest convenience; we’d like to schedule an interview.

And excuse me if I don’t answer your emails in a timely fashion. I’ll be outside behind the barn barfing my brains out.

Technorati Tags: Cronyism,SOBs,affordable housing

MSHA….let the borrowed OPM roll

2011-11-10T17:55:00.001-05:00

(Ed. Note: For the unitiated, ‘OPM,’ pronounced like o-pi-em, is an abbreviation for other people’s money.)

(Ed. Note: the above photos are of various ‘affordable housing’ projects around the country, which is to say government subsidized housing. Their relevance will become clear, hopefully, in what follows.)

Let’s begin with two questions to stimulate your curiosity:

1) Do you know what the Maine State Housing Authority (MSHA) is and does?

2) Do you know how big a purse they control the strings of?

We’d be a bit surprised if you do know about them, and we damn well expect you to be surprised when you find out how much funding they control. We were beyond surprised ourselves…we were stunned. And we don’t stun all that easily, given where we’ve been and what we’ve seen over the years, both in Washington and Augusta.

MSHA is an ‘Authority.’ Where have we heard that term before? Oh yeah, right here locally, where we have the MRRA – the Midcoast Regional Redevelopment Authority. In it’s former life, you may recall, MRRA was an Agency, but has been promoted to government big league status: an AUTHORITY!

To explain what the Maine State Housing Authority is, let’s go right to the source, Maine Statute (State Law, that is), which begins with these foreboding words:

§4722. Maine State Housing Authority established; powers, duties and restrictions

The Maine State Housing Authority is established and is a public body corporate and politic and an instrumentality of the State. [1987, c. 737, Pt. A, §2 (NEW); 1987, c. 737, Pt. C, §106 (NEW); 1989, c. 6, (AMD); 1989, c. 9, §2 (AMD); 1989, c. 104, Pt. C, §§8, 10 (AMD).]

1. Powers and duties. In addition to the powers granted by section 4741, the Maine State Housing Authority shall have the powers and duties to: (said powers and duties are enumerated in sub-paragraphs A thru Z followed by AA thru DD; see link above to read the item in totality)

(don’t fail to take a glimpse at section 4741, titled “Powers generally,” which lists 18 separate items under that heading.)

If you want your head to spin, your eyes to cross, your tongue to twist, your hair to catch on fire, your knickers in a knot, and your stomach to wretch, try reading and understanding all referenced and relevant sections. And when you’re finished, please send us a 500 word taxpayer summary.

We know there are qualified counsel among our readers; what a great little homework exercise for these “interested students.” We promise to publish worthy submissions.

We ourselves haven’t read all the statutory language, because the details are not germane to the points to be made here. Just the references in each sub-paragraph, parenthetical or otherwise, are enough to keep a law-school class busy for a year, let alone the overworked staff here at Poppycock Media.

Can you imagine how many state and federal bureaucrats, politicians, lobbyists, ‘non-profits,’ assorted do-gooders, busybodies, law firms, and government hangers-on were involved in the construction of this set of ‘powers and duties,’ complete with all the references? While at the same time making sure the Authority was not subject to the oversight of the Governor or the Legislature?

Now multiply that thought by 50, since we’re confident that every state in the Union has a similar ‘Authority,’ a ‘body politic’ and ‘instrumentality of the state,’ that operates beyond the oversight of the elected representatives of the people.

Maybe it’s just us, but this seems like the Fantasyland version of a recipe for abuse, just waiting to grow government, make new friends, and pick winners and losers. And perhaps, just perhaps, a healthy dose of crony capitalism thrown in for good measure. Along with tax loopholes, tax breaks, and other forms of ‘corporate welfare.’

Take note, please, all you big government social and economic justice advocates. And those concerned about the 99% v. 1% ‘debate.’

As fate would have it, we know some people who are ‘in the know’ on this subject and many others, and on your behalf, we’ve dug into the facts attaching to the MSHA. It turns out the results of last year’s election have caused eyes to be cast on government activities that have been operating with out much interest by our leaders for decades, like the MSHA, the Maine Turnpike Authority, and others. Which is a very good thing, given their scale and reach both politically and fiscally.

Here’s some summary data we’ve obtained. The numbers that follow are from a report prepared by the MSHA titled "Federal Housing funds at work in Maine".

MEDIAN HOME PRICE: Maine: $177,500. First Congressional District: $221,900. Second District: $138,000

MEDIAN HOUSEHOLD INCOME: Maine: $45,734. 1st District: $52,328: 2nd District: $39,365.

INCOME NEEDED TO AFFORD MEDIAN HOME PRICE: Maine: $60,450; 1st District: $75,550; 2nd District: $47,000.

HOUSEHOLDS UNABLE TO AFFORD MEDIAN PRICE: Maine: 63%; 1st District: 69%; 2nd District: 58%.

AVERAGE TWO BEDROOM RENT: Maine: $722; 1st District: $840; 2nd District: $611.

HOUSEHOLDS UNABLE TO AFFORD AVERAGE TWO BEDROOM RENT: Maine: 55%; 1st District: 55%; 2nd District: 54%.

TOTAL FEDERAL DOLLARS SPENT THROUGH MSHA DURING 2010 IN MAINE: $1,105,593,552.

(Ed. Note: yes, that’s BILLION with a B, and that works out to an average of roughly $850 per person for every man, woman, and child in Maine. That’s just federal dollars; we’ve got homework to do to determine how much other funding they spend per year!)

TOTAL NUMBER OF HOMES SERVED: 84,730.

(Ed. Note: Brunswick, in round numbers, is about one-sixtieth of Maine’s population. If the ‘homes served’ were evenly distributed across the population, 1,400 of them would be in Brunswick. That’s about 6 times the number of housing units in the former Navy housing complex on McKeen Street. Think about that as you drive around town, and what it means about the scope of state and federal government involvement in our existence. 1,400 homes in Brunswick alone!)

AVERAGE PER HOME SERVED: $13,048.

MAJOR LOW INCOME PROJECTS USING, OR PROPOSING TO USE, MSHA FUNDING:

   -ELM TERRACE, PORTLAND: Projected cost of $314,000 per unit.

   -ASH ST., LEWISTON: Projected costs of $273,000 per unit.

   -EMERY PROJECT, BIDDEFORD: Cost per unit $284,000.

   -MAINE HALL, BANGOR: Cost per unit: $214,000.

   -GILMAN PROJECT, WATERVILLE: Cost per unit $292,000.

   -LOFTS, BATES MILL, LEWISTON: Cost per unit: $199,375.

Think about those numbers for a long, hard moment; government “affordable housing” whose price puts it beyond the reach of more than two-thirds of Maine residents! And keep in mind that 40% of every dollar the feds spend these days is created out of thin air (printed, or borrowed.)

The units referred to above are estimated to run in the range of 1,000 to 1,200 square feet each. (We’d hope that “lofts” are less than that, but hey, when you’re the government, why skimp?)

In round numbers then, the price per square foot runs in the range of $200 to about $300 per square foot. And this is in keeping with MSHA’s mission of creating ‘affordable housing,’ at least in government terms, we must note.

We invite you to consider what your own domicile might be worth at say, $250 per square foot, and then ask how that compares with what you paid for it, and what you think it could sell for today. As for us, we would take the money and run if we could get it, and we bet you’d gladly do the same. Our number would be well beyond what we imagined we might get in our wildest dreams, before the housing market tanked.

If you had a Billion dollars a year to dispense in Maine, plus as yet unidentified additional sums, do you think you’d have lots of good friends? And people gathering around your door at all hours of the day and night, promising to ‘go forth and do good’ if you’d just send them some of that little nest-egg? And maybe building careers that allow them to prosper off the un-overseen flow of OPM?

Now some seemingly obvious questions. What about mobile homes, the preferred affordable housing for many Maine citizens?

Or factory built apartment modules? What are the protocols for moving people along once they’ve had some number of years in these units, or is this a permanent ‘entitlement?’ Etc, etc, et cetera.

What about excess vacant housing stock on the open market? Including vacated base housing here in Brunswick? Why isn’t that good enough?

Now the real burning question: just how deep do you think the fiscal, monetary, and economic hole we are digging for ourselves goes? And what chance do you think we have of ever getting ourselves out of the hole?

For those of you with the gumption to follow up on the subject, here’s an article to read: http://www.sunjournal.com/news/state/2011/10/27/affordable-housing-project-overrun-raises-stakes-maine-housing-mccormick/11067

And then there’s this:

http://content.govdelivery.com/bulletins/gd/METREAS-1a4863

This item contains this info:

The first MSHA board meeting with its new members is scheduled for 9 a.m. on Tuesday, November 15 at the MSHA offices at 353 Water Street in Augusta. All Authority board meetings are open to the public. For the first time in memory, the meetings will be audio recorded. (Ed. Note: street address has been corrected.)

We hope you’ll consider coming to this meeting; we intend to do so, and we know others who plan to as well. We expect this to be an ‘ah-ha’ moment for the leadership of MSHA, which has in all likelihood gotten a free pass from the taxpaying public for more years than you can count on your hands and feet.

We expect the entertainment and enlightenment level to be in the upper decile of such events. Please join us, and bring some friends.

If only Frosty’s were still in business, we’d bring donuts for everyone, affordable or not.

Technorati Tags: MSHA,affordable housing,big government

Just too good not to pass along…

2011-11-10T12:47:00.001-05:00

We have no idea who this guy is, but we came across this item in our morning ‘travels.’ We thinks he has something here.

Don’t let the term asymptote scare you; if you weren’t a math & science groupie, you may never have heard it before. Think of it as a line or limit you keep getting closer and closer to, but never quite reach. (Kind of like how the last two minutes of a football game never seems to end, right?)

As the entire office staff watched it, we were reminded of a quote we heard a few years back:

In our founding years, we said ‘give me liberty, or give me death.’ Years later, that changed to ‘give me liberty.’ Now we’re at the point of ‘give me, give me..”

Anyhow, enjoy the show.

Technorati Tags: Occupy wall street,today's youth

Trains? Oh yeah…..and other tidbits….

2011-11-09T20:03:00.001-05:00

In keeping with what has become the typical ‘walking-back’ of grand projections by government agencies, or even more likely, their highly prized ‘consultants,’ we pass along this recent update on the outlook for Amtrak service to Brunswick. Note, of course, if you read the article, that the decline in outlook is because of selfish Brunswick residents, who have graciously provided an alibi for the usual suspects and their typically overblown sales jobs.

For a few years now, official bloviators have been promising 35,000 visitors a year to Brunswick, or an average of 100 per day, via trains from Boston. Looks like that will have to be scaled back to 20,000 or fewer. Lots of credibility here from all fronts, at least if you believe government agency spokespersons.

From the Forecaster:

Update: Maintenance facility delay means fewer Amtrak Downeaster trips between Portland and Brunswick

We’re too worn out from fall yard clean up chores to comment at length on the news contained herein, with the following exceptions:

According to Quinn, a preliminary schedule has northbound trains passing through Freeport just before 12:30 p.m. and 10 p.m. Trains heading south from Brunswick will stop in Freeport just after 7 a.m. and 1:30 p.m.

Are you kidding? Are these times supposed to make sense from any point of view?

He (Wayne Davis, chairman of the rail-advocacy group TrainRiders/Northeast) also expressed concern about the impact of decreased service on the Brunswick business community, especially new businesses at Brunswick Station that were expecting more than two daily round trips.

We’re trying our best to recall the “new businesses” at Brunswick Station, and all we come up with business-wise is Scarlet Begonia’s, Byrnes Irish Pub, and Park Row Interiors, none of which really qualify as ‘new businesses.’ If any of these chose their current location because they believed customers would come to Brunswick in droves by train from Boston to patronize their business, they have their collective heads up their collective…well, you get our drift.

Oh, we know, there’s the recently opened Mid-Coast walk-in clinic, and the orthopedic medical practice. Are we supposed to believe they made their decision to open because of expected train passengers from Boston? We were born at night, but not last night, to use the old bromide.

Look – it’s very simple; government agencies, their enablers, their consultants, and their assorted Kool-Aid sippers are all to willing to sell us pigs-in-a-poke, bills-of-goods, and fantasy land dreamscapes.

It’s what they do, and it’s why we are at the brink of economic collapse from which there is no escape.

Teacher Pay

You already know where we stand on this subject.

That doesn’t mean we can’t burden you with our views yet again.

The most frequent shibboleth we hear on this subject is that ‘teachers are underpaid.’ Our view is that SOME teachers are UNDERPAID, and SOME teachers are OVERPAID.

in other words, we believer firmly that union contracts that reduce all teachers to a homogeneous group of nameless, faceless ‘members’ are an affront to the concept of professionalism, and more importantly, mock the very concept of teacher ‘excellence.’

We’ve said it once, and we’ll say it again: any system that pays the very worst teachers the same as the very best teachers is unfair, unjust, and an insult to those who teach our children. We cannot, for the life of us, understand how the vast majority of ‘educators’ have allowed themselves to be roped into such an arrangement.

And until they extract themselves from said arrangement, their protestations and equivocations will fall upon deaf ears at these offices.

Enough for now. Here’s a recently published commentary on the subject. Form your own opinions.

As for us, we will not waver from our conviction that the teachers’ loyalty to their unions and their anti-education agenda is their own worst enemy. We will not change our opinion until the teachers’ change their allegiance.

Technorati Tags: trains,teachers,unons,government predictions

Worried about your job?: post script

2011-11-04T21:10:00.001-04:00

We came across this quote recently, and were fascinated by it. The words speak to our own affliction:

There are a thousand thoughts lying within a man that he does not know till he takes up a pen to write. -William Makepeace Thackeray, novelist (1811-1863)

With this as prelude, we remind you of a post we published yesterday that included these words:

Assuming the figures are valid, there was one school employee for every 8.47 students ten years ago, and one employee for every 6.47 students in the most recent fiscal year. In so many words, department employment has remained largely flat in the face of a 27% decline in enrollment.

Can you think of any other ‘profession’ that would be able to hold employment steady with a 27% decrease in ‘clients?’ Keep in mind we’re operating two fewer schools than just a few years ago.

As we laid our head upon the pillow last night, we realized that the government school ‘profession’ is unique, because even though the client base is down 27%, the revenue base is not. Ten years ago in Brunswick, the school budget was $24 million; now it’s $33 million. It’s been flat in the last few years despite major enrolment (‘client’) declines.

Jobs are not at risk because the revenue base for the school department is completely adjustable, independent of the number of students. It’s a simple matter of using the ‘power of persuasion’ over a largely clueless, fawning, or scared public taxpayer base. Combined with the force of law to secure the revenue. Property taxes are raised as necessary to provide the revenue the schoolies demand.

This situation is akin to the “he’s an SOB, but he’s our SOB'” concept we’ve been discussing in recent posts. In so many words, “schools in Maine may be underperforming, but this underperforming school is OUR school.”

Another way to look at it is through the 99% vs 1% paradigm currently in vogue. Let’s describe the 99%, or more, in the terms mentioned above. To whit:

The clueless:

“you mean we pay taxes to support the schools?”
“what are you gonna do; taxes are always going up.”
“I don’t have any idea how much we pay; our taxes are impounded as part of our house payment.”
“who knows what the right amount to pay for schools is?”
“I don’t have the time or the interest to worry about this; how much could it cost?”

The fawning:

“We moved to Brunswick because the schools are the absolute best.”
“People buy homes here because the schools are so good.”
“My child’s teacher is the best we’ve ever had.”
“There’s no amount of money that’s too much when it comes to the schools.”
“You simply can’t measure teacher effectiveness; it’s way too complicated to judge in such simple terms.”
“These are professionals, and we need to give them the latitude and compensation they deserve, even if we can’t measure their results.”
“I don’t care how much more the schools want; I'll gladly pay it.”
“The school board doesn’t have to disclose contract negotiations with the teachers’ union; we elect them to do that and we shouldn’t question what they do.”
“The children are our future; if you aren’t for the children, you should move elsewhere.”

The scared:

“I don’t want to speak up because I’m afraid of what might happen to my tax bill.”
“I spoke up in the past, and it didn’t make a bit of difference, other than my neighbors said I was anti-school and anti-children.”
'”What’s the use?; they’re just going to do what they always do, and why should I bother getting scorned in public?”
“If I speak up, they’ll take it out on my kids.”
“Who wants to be written up in the local paper as against ‘school excellence?’”

After you account for the above, you’re left with what might seem like the 1%, but is actually far less, who are willing to stand up and challenge the powers that be and the annual theatrics surrounding the budget.

Which is why our annual per student cost has grown from less than $7,000 to more than $13,000 in the last ten years.

‘Not that there’s anything wrong with that’, to borrow a phrase from Seinfeld.

And judging by what we read in the press about the current field of school board candidates, we can count on more of the same, or more.

No one seems interested in managing the school enterprise on behalf of property taxpayers. Instead, they seem only to be interested in who can spend the most to prove they care the most.

Or more.

Technorati Tags: Brunswick,schools,budgets,taxes,jobs

Fin-centric post script

2011-11-03T21:45:00.001-04:00

For you hot car groupies out there, here’s a link to a car very, very close to the one this reporter had. Same color, same engine. And only $175,000!

Same color, but does not have the Chrysler 300 markings. And exact same engine; make sure you look closely at it. The carburetor on the left fuels the cylinders on the right, and vice versa. THAT was some engine.

When we drove across country, and stopped at service stations and had the oil checked, it caused quite a stir when the gas jockey first saw those tubes and the carburetors outside the cylinder banks.

But they loved selling us gas!

Tuning up this SOB was quite a challenge. To change plugs, you had to take off the front wheels and remove panels inside the fenders to get acess to the engine and the plugs. You could not reach them from the top.

What fun.

Technorati Tags: memories,rare cars

Oh, don’t you just love those ‘nice young people’ protesting down there on Wall Street?

2011-11-03T20:56:00.001-04:00

Here in Maine, where we’re blessed with the oldest population of any state in the country, we often hear such kind and tolerant language when it comes to civil unrest and various other indiscretions from young and not so young ‘activists.’ And we often see very visible signs of such activists from many decades ago, who simply can’t resist plastering the back end of their Subarus and Volvos with the chicest bumper stickers du jour.

Good for them, we say. At least if they’re sincere and act with integrity of purpose.

Like everything else these days, ‘protesting’ has evolved to become something more than meets the eye. In this context, the notion of ‘useful idiots,’ often attributed to Lenin, is more apropos than ever.

(Just so you know, we’re Marxists here at Side. Our favorite is Groucho, whose sense of humor was closest to our own.)

Who knows when things will turn violent…they already have, to some degree, and crime is rampant…and how violent for how long?

As Michelle Malkin said in her recent speech in Portland. the OWS protesters “want all the benefits of socialism, without any of the costs, and they want all the benefits of capitalism without any of the costs.”

Here’s some news you should find ‘amusing:’ those nice young people have attracted support from some very, very interesting corners. Read here to have your eyes opened.

For those who don’t have the time, the patience, or the inclination to do so, here’s a list of prominent supporters, complete with reference links to back up the assertions:

===================================================

The 99%: Official list of Occupy Wall Street’s supporters, sponsors and sympathizers

Communist Party USA

Communist Party USA, OWS speech, The Daily Caller

American Nazi Party

Media Matters, American Nazi Party, White Honor, Sunshine State News

Ayatollah Khamenei, Supreme Leader of Iran

The Guardian, Tehran Times, CBS News

Barack Obama

ABC News, CBS News, ForexTV, NBC New York

The government of North Korea

Korean Central News Agency (North Korean state-controlled news outlet), The Marxist-Leninist, Wall Street Journal, Times of India

Louis Farrakhan, Nation of Islam

video statement (starting at 8:28), Black in America, Weasel Zippers, Philadelphia Weekly

Revolutionary Communist Party

Revolutionary Communist Party, Revolution newspaper, in-person appearance

David Duke

Talking Points Memo, video statement, davidduke.com

Joe Biden

Talking Points Memo, video statement, Mother Jones

Hugo Chavez

Mother Jones, Reuters, Examiner.com

Revolutionary Guards of Iran

Associated Press, FARS News Agency, UPI

Black Panthers (original)

in-person appearance, Occupy Oakland, Oakland Tribune

Socialist Party USA

Socialist Party USA, IndyMedia, The Daily Caller

US Border Guard

White Reference, www.usborderguard.com, Gateway Pundit, Just Another Day blog

Industrial Workers of the World

IWW web site, iww.org, in-person appearances

CAIR

in-person appearance, Washington Post, CAIR, CAIR New York

Nancy Pelosi

Talking Points Memo, video statement, ABC News, The Weekly Standard

Communist Party of China

People’s Daily (Communist Party organ), Reuters, chinataiwan.org, The Telegraph

Hezbollah

almoqawama.org, almoqawama.org (2), almoqawama.org (3), wikipedia

9/11Truth.org

911truth.org (1), 911truth.org (2), 911truth.org (3)

International Bolshevik Tendency

bolshevik.org, Wire Magazine

Anonymous

Adbusters, The Guardian, video statement

White Revolution

whiterevolution.com

International Socialist Organization

Socialist Worker, socialistworker.org, in-person appearance

PressTV (Iranian government outlet)

PressTV, wikipedia

Marxist Student Union

Marxist Student Union, Big Government, marxiststudentunion.blogspot.com

Freedom Road Socialist Organization

FightBack News, fightbacknews.org

ANSWER

ANSWER press release, ANSWER web site, Xinhua

Party for Socialism and Liberation

Liberation News (1), pslweb.org, The Daily Free Press, Liberation News (2)

====================================================

Which proves once again just how irresistible the innocence and good intentions of ‘nice young people’ is to even the most hard-hearted among us.

And how many problems we can expect to have visited upon us from this ‘movement.’

We’re felling better already. How about you?

Technorati Tags: activists,occupy wall street

Worried about your job? Or know someone else who is?

2011-11-03T20:36:00.001-04:00

Most of us who are vertical and taking nourishment know that the dominant theme of public discourse these days is jobs. Millions have lost their jobs, unemployment is stuck at 9% plus, massive government spending is fixing nothing, and first time unemployment applications run about 400,000 a week. Week after week.

In the midst of this economic goat rope, we’re forced to suffer the inane comments of our elite ruling class, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (or as we think of him, the Senate Mortician) and VP Joe (Joey Plugs) Biden prominent among them. They want us to believe that things in the private sector are just peachy; it’s the public sector that is suffering. Yah, shure, Oley.

We won’t bore you with source quotes; we have too much respect for your gastrointestinal well-being. You can read the essentials here, complete with links to reference material.

As for the facts, you can go here to find figures based on the federal government’s own census data. To put it mildly, Reid, Biden, and anyone else who backs them up on their claims are bald-faced liars, and should be brought up on charges for fragrant violation of the public trust.

Enough already. We want to move on to local issues, the kind you’d expect to see discussed in the local press. If you believe in the tooth fairy and free lunches, that is.

We’ve reported on Brunswick School enrollment figures many times in the past, and most recently discussed it here. Matched to budget figures, the net result is that per student expenditures have risen from less than $7000 per student in the first year of the new century to more than $13,500 per student in the current school year, or virtually double in a decade.

We had more than 3300 students then, and have less than 2500 now. While not as severely, statewide enrolment has been declining steadily due to Maine’s demographic decline, a major problem in its own right.

Let’s move on to related school system employment. Data received from town offices shows School Department employment of 398 early in this decade, rising to a peak of 415 three years ago, and a total of 396 in the fiscal year just passed. These figures “represent the department’s best estimates of full time positions” according to a note on the data page.

Assuming the figures are valid, there was one school employee for every 8.47 students ten years ago, and one employee for every 6.47 students in the most recent fiscal year. In so many words, department employment has remained largely flat in the face of a 27% decline in enrollment. Can you think of any other ‘profession’ that would be able to hold employment steady with a 27% decrease in ‘clients?’ Keep in mind we’re operating two fewer schools than just a few years ago.

Here’s the ‘money fact:’ if the employee to student ratio had been held constant at 8.47, the department would have 303 employees now, or 93 fewer than the current total. How much lower would that make your property tax bill? Simple answer: a bunch.

Now the ‘money question:’ if enrolment had stayed flat over this time, how many employees might the department have added? Would it be 93? Actually, it could be considerably more if you go by the numbers alone. At a ratio of 6.47, employment for 3350 students would be about 517, or over 120 more than the current figure and the head count a decade ago.

The pregnant puzzler, it goes without saying, is just how many new employees the department will demand if, against all odds, enrolment should start to rise again?

The underlying message here is that if you want to be immune from prevailing economic conditions, go to work for the government, and especially, the government schools. Guaranteed raises, no performance standards, Cadillac benefits, and virtually lifetime employment no matter what.

We can only wonder when Harry the Undertaker and Joey Plugs will regale us with these inconvenient realities.

And in a related story, hell freezes over.

Technorati Tags: school department,Brunswick,budgets,taxes,jobs,unemployment

Memory flogger, fin-centric variety

2011-11-03T18:35:00.001-04:00

It’s a fairly well kept secret, but in some quarters around town, your humble correspondent is known as the Brunswick Fury, as in ‘a fury of creative energy.’ In other quarters, we’re known as the old fart, which is, in a manner of speaking, a ‘Fury’ that is well past it’s prime.

There is, ironically enough, another ‘Fury’ in our CV. It’s a 1960 Plymouth Fury convertible. We owned one for two years, the first of which was our senior year in college (Rutgers University.)

On our recent trek to the family reunion, we encountered almost a carbon copy as we were coming back into North Jersey from Pennsylvania. Like any good reporter, we had our Flip camera at hand, and shot this video over the dashboard of our chauffeured SUV.

You’ll note that the fins on the convertible are amongst its most prominent features. As best we can tell, the security team tailing the Fury is in an early 60’s Oldsmobile Starfire convertible; it may be a 1962.

The good memories came flooding back as we followed the Fury. Ours had a white top, and the paint was a medium red, lighter than the ‘Candy Apple Red’ popular in those days, and the apparent color on the trailing Olds.

Many will think the the car was a ‘chick magnet,’ but the most fun we had with it was cruising the summer boardwalk scene along the Jersey Shore.

Our particular vehicle was equipped with the Chrysler 300 package, which made it very rare. We bought it from a fraternity brother in 1962, whose father owned a Chrysler-Plymouth dealership, which explains the unique version. And the fact that the engine had been balanced and blueprinted at the dealership.

It also had an RCA 45 rpm record player mounted upside down under the center of the dashboard. You took your favorite 45’s and pushed them up onto the spindle. It was great fun to pull up next to someone else at a stoplight, or in traffic, and have them yell over to you ‘hey, what station are you llistening to?’ Replying that it was not the radio, but our record player, always elicited double takes and looks that were priceless. We especially remember playing ‘Big Boy Pete,’ which seemed to get the biggest interest.

The Chrysler 300 package meant the various emblems on the body, and the hubcaps, were all 300 logos. More important, we had the 383 cubic inch hemi engine with ram induction and dual fours. And stick shift to get the most from the engine.

She got about 8 miles per gallon, at about 30 cents or so per gallon back then. Tire technology was not up to the power at our command, and the gentlest tap on the gas pedal, in any gear, would burn rubber, as much as you might want.

We paid $1850 for the car in 1962, with 20,000 miles on it, and after graduation in 1963, drove cross country in it to begin our pursuit of fame and fortune on the left coast. And as they say, the rest is history. Untold and undistinguished, but history none-the-less.

God, how we’d love to have that car back. What an idiot we were for trading it in on a brand new 1964 Corvair for about $350 because we were getting married and needed a more ‘practical’ car. It had only 40,000 miles on it.

Such is the ill-considered impulsiveness of youth, we suppose.

(Ed. Note: the assertion that we are known as the ‘Brunswick Fury’ is pure poppycock.)

Technorati Tags: memories,cars,lost youth

No-bid naughtiness: the details so far….

2011-10-29T18:47:00.001-04:00

You’ve probably already forgotten, and frankly, we wouldn’t blame you, that we introduced this subject here. And then we teased you to be ready for a follow-up here.

We’re now ready to provide that follow-up. Our only reason for the delay is that we were busy enjoying life, if you don’t mind us doing so. We visited North Jersey, where we were born and raised, to visit our daughter and family, who relocated there in recent months. And to join in a partial family reunion in the Lancaster, PA area, heart of Amish/Pennsylvania Dutch country. It was an enjoyable and rewarding several days.

Back to business; we promised we’d update you with specific information once we had it, and here we come. We also need to tell you that the activity level in this subject area is far higher than we had anticipated. As so often happens, once you start looking into things, new insights and information start coming your way.

Before we report on what we’ve found, you might want to read this article: teacher's health insurance. Serendipitously, we got the link from a friend; it’s ‘right in the wheelhouse’ of our discussion, and you should find it illuminating.

As to specific information, here’s what we have so far:

Brunswick School Department insurance figures, provided by their Finance Director, are as follows:

Total: $4,805,000, of which $4,430,000, or 92% goes to MEA coffers, and 3.4% goes to the MMA. (MEA is the Maine Education Association – the state teacher’s union; MMA is the Maine Municipal Association – the state ‘union’ of municipal governments.)

Employee Medical $4,430,000; from MEA benefits trust; these are ‘public funds only.’ Employee contributions for medical insurance are $533,154 in addition to employer share of $4,430,000. In other words, total funds to the MEA for Brunswick school department employee health insurance are a shade under $5 million.

Employee Dental $150,732; from Securian.

Workers Compensation $136,934; from MMA.

Motor Vehicle $7,595; Kyes Agency, Farmington.

Liability $19,985; Kyes.

Property Casualty $60,024; Kyes.

Let’s extrapolate those figures to statewide totals.

Brunswick has less than 2500 students, in a state that has about 180,000 total. If the per student payments to the MEA and MMA were equal state wide, the school departments would be spending a total of nearly $360 million on insurance with the MEA, and $9.8 million with the MMA. Here in Brunswick, we’re sending the MEA about $2,000 per student on employee medical alone.

Wow times twenty!

On the municipal side, here are the figures:

MMEHT – Health Insurance - $1,646,576.79 of which $1,332,621.00 is paid by the Town of Brunswick, and the remainder paid by employees. (This is the health insurance program run by the MMA.)

MMA Worker’s Compensation Pool - $183,032.83 all paid by the Town of Brunswick.

MMA Property & Casualty Risk Pool - $156,654.30 all paid by Town of Brunswick.

(Everything else is down in the noise for or purposes here.)

Summing up, from what we know, our municipal government spends about $2 million on insurance annually with the MMA. If Brunswick is typical, the MMA does about $140 million in total insurance business state-wide.

Based on figures we’ve seen in recent years, this insurance business yields about $8 million in excess revenue (“profit” in business terms) for the MMA. If the MEA has the same ‘profit’ margin, their insurance business would turn a ‘revenue excess’ of more than $20 million.

In both cases, since neither is a public corporations with stockholders, these profits are available for use as the organizations see fit – most typically, in partisan political activism and lobbying efforts.

These figures set the stage for examining activity in the Maine legislature in recent months. Two bills have been passed and signed into public law that address the conduct of MEA insurance operations.

The first began as LD 1326, “An Act To Allow School Administrative Units To Seek Less Expensive Health Insurance Alternatives.” You can find the status summary for the bill here. If you do, the most important thing to note is that the bill passed on a largely party line vote.

The law, as passed, is not a mandate of any sort; it simply requires that school districts be given access to claims experience information they need to pursue the option of competitive bids for health insurance; information that the MEA and their selected insurer have been able to legally withhold in the past.

The second bill, which began as LD 404, also became law, and is entitled “An Act To Assist School Administrative Units In Providing Health Insurance to Their Employees.” In basic terms, this law requires that school department administrators seek competitive bids for health insurance for their employees at least once every 5 years, rather than being permanently locked in to the MEA statewide plan. Pretty radical stuff, huh?

According to reports we’ve received, the MEA devoted considerable effort to lobbying against these bills. They were unsuccessful, as the new legislative majorities were supportive of competition as a fundamental method for delivering best value for taxpayer dollars.

This did not sit well with the teachers’ union, and the MEA is therefore pursuing further legal action to have the laws overturned. You can read about it here. This press release reads, in part, as follows:

Maine Education Association Challenges New State Health Care Laws

10/14/2011 03:23 PM ET

The MEA's Health Benefit Trust, which covers tens of thousands of Maine educators and their families, contend that the new laws will weaken its system.

The Maine Education Association's Health Benefit Trust is challenging two new Maine laws it says will weaken the system that covers tens of thousands of Maine teachers and their family members.

The Health Benefit Trust filed a suit in federal court Oct. 12 aimed at blocking the implementation of LD 1326, which requires the Trust's insurer, Anthem-BlueCross and Blue Shield, to release the claims history or "experience rating" for any school unit that requests the information. (Oh the horror!)

In addition, the MEA's board of directors has authorized a legal challenge to LD 404, a new law which requires the Health Benefit Trust to use a competitive bidding process and to create a lower-cost insurance option by July 1 of 2012.

The full statement is loaded with the equivocation and stereotypical rhetoric of politically protected special interest groups; we choose not to confront you with all of it, lest you suffer gastric unrest. But you can go for the full Monte if you wish; just click on the link above.

Hence we come to this: what is our point in discussing all of this?

Lacking anything more compelling, we suppose it’s to ask these questions:

1) Why would one party join forces with a special interest, very powerful union, to block ordinary taxpayers from being able to access the benefits of the competitive open market?

2) Why would the Maine Teachers’ Union be so willing to go to the mat, and invest big lobbying dollars, to protect their established monopoly in school department health insurance coverage?

The questions, we believe, answer themselves. It’s to make sure the union can keep funding THEIR sons-a-bitches, in order for them to maintain privileged status over ordinary tax-paying citizens who are tired of more money in education buying less and less in the way of results.

When will you conclude we’ve had enough? With all the news breaking lately on favored interests getting their way, how much longer do you think we can endure this flagrant abuse of common sense and the true public interest?

Technorati Tags: Teachers' Union,school budgets,MMA,MEA,health insurance legislation

We simply have no room to cut….

2011-10-19T14:55:00.001-04:00

On Monday, we spoke about big government excess, speculation, and moral hazard, among other things.

Care to see the numbers associated with these concepts? Give these a look-see:

The table is from this article: A New Spending Record

It’s our view that these clearly destructive and unsustainable numbers are in large measure due to government speculation dripping with moral hazard:

Speculation that massive increases in food stamps will eradicate poverty.
Speculation that huge increases in unemployment insurance will increase employment.
Speculation that mortgage rules that encourage the unqualified to buy a home, and then when they fall off the cliff, that mortgage subsidies will somehow make them qualified.
Speculation that car companies that are no longer viable can be made viable with government subsidies.
Speculation that otherwise non-viable alternative energy approaches have only failed because the right people were not encouraging them with other peoples’ money.
Speculation that federal money to pay for teachers, policemen, and firemen, historically locally funded, will not cause a crisis when the money runs out.
Speculation that big money firms that have no chance of long term success will succeed if only the government subsidizes them.
Speculation that capitalism is a failed system, and that collectivism, which has a dismal record, can suddenly become workable and sustainable, and generate more wealth.
Speculation that pork distribution trumps responsible governing.

And these people say that cutting a measly few percent from these budget levels is virtually impossible, and would cause needless suffering?

The really sad thing is that the nearly billion dollar mistake that is Solyndra doesn’t even make round off error scale in figures this big.

Think about that: a billion dollar boondoggle that doesn’t even reach the level of ‘a drop in the bucket.’

BA, BVA. (can you guess what these stand for?)

Technorati Tags: big government,speculation,moral hazard

Solyndra: the moral hazard of big government excess, corruption, and corporate cronyism, not to mention ‘fair share’ duplicity.

2011-10-17T22:56:00.001-04:00

Our lavish spending big government is afflicted with a multitude of pathologies that threaten the core founding principle of ‘self-governance,’ and hence the American experiment. There may be no finer exemplar of the phenomenon than the recent Solyndra fiasco.

This is, we believe, a critical teaching moment.

Do you know what moral hazard is? And how it relates to ‘Other Peoples’ Money?’

We began to hear ‘moral hazard’ in common usage just a few years back, and although the words ‘moral’ and ‘hazard’ are simple enough in meaning, we weren’t sure what they meant when joined together.

‘Moral hazard’ is easily illustrated by the rental car business. When someone rents a car from Avis, or Hertz, or whomever, they are not likely to have the same sense of responsibility for the rental car as they have for their own vehicle. “Hey, it’s not my car!” “Floor it; let’s see what it will do; hell, it’s just a rental car!”

In other words, moral hazard exists when two parties to an arrangement have widely different personal stakes in the deal. The concept of Other Peoples’ Money dovetails perfectly with the idea of moral hazard.

To expand on this further, here are two principles we’ve posted before, each from a publication of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy:

1) What belongs to you, you tend to take care of;
what belongs to no one or everyone tends to fall into disrepair.

If you think you’re so good at taking care of property, go live in someone else’s house, or drive their car, for a month. I guarantee you neither their house nor their car will look the same as yours after the same period of time.

If you want to take the scarce resources of society and trash them, all you have to do is take them away from the people who created or earned them and hand them over to some central authority to manage. In one fell swoop, you can ruin everything.

(The best example we can think of locally is how the schools are allowed to slip into deferred maintenance status in favor of rising salary and benefit expenses, and ‘suddenly’ become a crisis.)

2) Nobody spends somebody else's money as carefully as he spends his own.

Ever wonder about those stories of $600 hammers and $800 toilet seats that the government sometimes buys? You could walk the length and breadth of this land and not find a soul who would say he’d gladly spend his own money that way. And yet this waste often occurs in government and occasionally in other walks of life, too. Why? Because invariably, the spender is spending somebody else’s money.

When you spend other people’s money to buy something for someone else, the connection between the earner, the spender and the recipient is the most remote — and the potential for mischief and waste is the greatest. Think about it — somebody spending somebody else’s money on yet somebody else. That’s what government does all the time.

Nobody — repeat, nobody — spends someone else’s money as carefully as he spends his own.

(Add quid-pro-quo to the equation, as in campaign donations in exchange for favors, and the danger increases exponentially.)

Now on to the Solyndra file. In a nutshell, this case brings into play the wealthy, non-profits, fair share, SOBs ne plus ultra, and all the rest. In other words, all the wondrous things that have dominated public discourse in recent months, and much of the recent posting here on Side.

Oil magnate George Kaiser: "There's never before been more money shoved out the government's door in world history."

Here are two articles you should read:

Solyndra and a Billionaire’s Guilt Trip, and The Solyndra Economy.

Cutting to the chase, what these articles reveal is:

Billionaire George Kaiser, who feels a profound sense of guilt for his circumstances, but nevertheless has his family’s fortune set up in a non-profit foundation, which minimizes tax exposure for their vast wealth.
The Kaiser family fortune derives from oil, the morally depraved energy source that is the villain in the solar/green/renewable energy phantasmagoria.
Even though paying his ‘fair share’ seems not to be a priority, Kaiser has visited the Obama White House 16 times, or on average, every two months or so.
The non-profits’ funds are staged in such a way as to be the primary private stake-holder in the failed Solyndra gamble.
Willful irresponsibility of the administration in matters of due diligence on giving taxpayer money to Solyndra, and allowing said funds to be put in a lower position than private funds should bankruptcy occur, which it has.
The benefits of having your Son of a Bitch being the SOB ne plus ultra.
The rampant corporate cronyism practiced in the highest levels of our government.

In a word, the absolute moral bankruptcy of government when it goes so far beyond its legitimate boundaries as to be out of control. Frankly, the more we think and write about this, the more we are at a total loss of words to express our concerns, and more so, our outrage.

As we said some days ago, be afraid, be very afraid. We certainly are.

Summary: Speculation vs. Investment

Just the other day, we heard a news report about oil speculators. Surely you remember them.

Gasoline prices at the moment are roughly twice what they were three years ago. When the prices began to rise after the new administration took office, the increases were blamed on greedy and irresponsible private sector ‘speculators.’ Meanwhile, government at both state and federal levels repeatedly told us about the need for taxpayer ‘investments’ to restore economic growth from the doldrums of “the great recession.” No matter how much it might cost.

The recent report from the CFA said that oil prices now would be between $60 and $75 per barrel if not for the effects of speculation in the worldwide oil market, which has resulted in 2011 prices of $80 to $100 per barrel.

As we reflect on the speculation in the public sector, that being government, particularly as exemplified by Solyndra and similar wildly unsuccessful uses of other peoples’ money, we are troubled by a nagging question.

Just how much of an effect has government speculation, which necessitates reckless printing of money and lavish issuing of debt instruments, had on the price of government, as reflected in taxes, inflationary loss of purchasing power, and the personal share of the national debt we and our progeny all carry on our shoulders?

And how much lower could our taxes be, and how much more our dollars worth, if not for all this reckless speculation in the name of political cronyism of the vilest sort?

By comparison, those who invest in oil futures look downright innocent, if you don’t mind me saying so. Somehow, when you’re operating with your own money, not that of anonymous others, and you aren’t looking to guarantee your re-election, things seem much clearer.

And almost childishly innocent by comparison.

Technorati Tags: SOBs,fair share,non-profits,cronyism,speculation

Today’s chuckle: do you know who you are?

2011-10-17T16:24:00.001-04:00

The recent post about school board members who have to hire consultants to tell them ‘where the schools are today’ reminded me of the old joke about a senior executive business traveler.

In such situations, frequent travelers at the highest status level with a given airline expect special treatment, especially when checking in and boarding. Matters are only worse when the traveler considers himself a ‘celebrity’ of some sort.

The story goes like this. The traveler arrives at his gate at the airport, seeing a long line at the ticket counter, and with no special services position open. He pushes his way up to the front of the counter and demands that he be given the service he expects.

The ticket agent tells him to get in line, and that he’ll be well taken care of when he waits his turn. Infuriated, the traveler comes out with the classic ‘do you know who I am?’

‘No sir,’ the agent replies, and quickly grabs her public address mike. ‘Attention please; we have a traveler at the podium who does not know who he is. Would anyone who can help him figure out who he is please come to the podium? Thank you.’

‘Hopefully sir, someone will come find you and tell who you are.’

Technorati Tags: Humor,diversions

The Price Is Right, Brunswick version…

2011-10-15T16:27:00.001-04:00

School consultants, COME ON DOWN! It’s your turn to play The Price Is RIght!

Amazing sometimes how things happen in streaks. Just a few days ago we posted on the subject of Brunswick schools and the worthiness of consultant services they’ve funded in recent years.

Then just this morning, as the Poppycocks were taking their breakfast at a local dining establishment, we came across an article heading down the very same track. It contains thoughts that are just too amusing to let slide without passing them along to loyal readers, who are always looking for a good laugh.

As often is the case, the usual suspects seem always ready to stand up and prove our points. Let’s begin with this:

The School Board ……. is seeking requests for proposals from consulting firms to create a five-year plan for the School Department that will describe where the schools are today, document where various stakeholders would like to go in the future, and provide ways to measure progress towards those goals.

Savor this language slowly….let it brighten your day. It’s not clear if this is the reporter’s language alone, or whether she simply took notes as she heard the words uttered by a school department official. To begin with, though, we think the School Board should seek proposals, rather than ‘requests for proposals,’ which is what you issue when you seek proposals.

But it really doesn’t matter. I’m convinced that with only a few hours effort, I can easily document where the schools are today, and I'll even throw in photos and maps. As to where they might go in the future, let’s get real here; how many other locations around town could accommodate them?

Few as the choices obviously are, we’re convinced it will be a piece of cake to measure the progress as the schools are moved from where they are today to where they might go in the future. It’ll be easy enough to do by following them as they move and taking pictures. Should things begin to get out of hand, we can always hire a helicopter with an eye in the sky to record the trip. Modern day technology will make it easy to measure the progress; can you say GPS?

Here’s another little tickler:

She (the Board chair) said every year the board asks itself what to spend money on, and the answer is usually dictated by how much money is available.

So I said to myself, self……

Seems the Board is thinking about spending $25,000 on consultants for this effort, which probably won’t draw much interest. So we should have a good shot at the job, charging, oh, $200 an hour or so, which will only cover our expenses and leave us with no-profit, allowing us to maintain our editorial purity.

Time to finish up on our little flight of frivolity. We’ll close with this whopper from another board member, which nearly had us coughing up our bagel and lox; only a nearby flute of champagne saved us:

"I just want everyone to understand that the town of Brunswick has in fact spent an exorbitant amount of money and time to create exactly what we’re talking about here tonight ... and nobody pays any attention to it…."

The funny part is, based on what we described about past consulting services funded by the School department a few days ago, we’d all be better off if nobody paid any attention to what they submit. Which might suggest not bringing them aboard in the first place.

Present company excepted, of course. Because we’re very good at consuming all the money that is available when that is the first priority.

Technorati Tags: school department,consultants

No-bid naughtiness – a heads up

2011-10-15T15:23:00.001-04:00

Earlier this week, we posted on the insurance operations of the Maine Education Association (the state teachers’ union) and the Maine Municipal Association, and what we believe to be a wide-spread no-bid relationship between these ‘organizations’ and the school departments and municipalities that procure their insurance from them.

We suggested that there may be opportunities for reaping significant savings by competing the coverage in the open insurance market. While this thought has been in the back of our mind for some time, it was only by chance that we decided to address it now. We promised we would gather some more data and report back, and if things looked promising, to pursue further action in the matter.

Well, wouldn’t you just know it; there has been some significant legislative interest in the subject this year, and it illuminates the political interests and sensitivities of the insurance operations. Which is to say that who holds the majorities makes a big difference.

Once we conclude our look into things, we expect to post some eye-opening results. Unless we get sidetracked, that should be within the next two weeks.

So stand by for some ‘education’ from your local non-profit wannabe reporter.

Technorati Tags: teachers union,MMA,insurance

Great schools? Like most things, it’s all relative…

2011-10-14T19:10:00.001-04:00

As long as we’re on the subject of ‘great schools’……you were, weren’t you?, because that’s the subject on our editorial mind right now…..we thought we’d pass along some illuminating data for your edification. Or should we say education; we must be ever mindful of our lust for non-profit status, as we mentioned a few days ago.

Brunswick has more than enough voices, parents and otherwise, chanting the ‘Brunswick has great schools’ mantra. A ‘first response’ from inquiring minds should be, ‘compared to what?’

And so we report education statistics we just acquired that are most troubling, especially on a global basis. Here they are, and none of them are going to elevate your spirits:

The US Ranks 27th among the nations of the world.
We are only graduating 79% from high school.
20% entering the UM system need remediation before beginning college work.
54% entering our community college system need remediation.
20% graduate from college after 4 years, and 48% after 6 years.

The figures above come from our state Department of Education. We find them most troubling, particularly those associated with remediation upon college entry. You would think those entering college are the ‘better prepared’ of our high school graduates. If this large a percentage are not ready going in for college work, what are we to infer about our K-12 systems? What about those not choosing college?

Are we granting a High School diploma to anyone who puts in the seat time, regardless of whether they’ve earned it? Are we inflating grades? Who are we kidding with policies that allow such cavalier system performance?

To make matters worse, if you’re thinking Maine leads the nation in education, think again. According to national studies on the subject, we rank 15th, with a C- grade. You can view the comparative results here:

www.edweek.org/media/ew/qc/2011/16sos.h30.k12.pdf

Great schools? Looks more like our schools have great public relations campaigns, and ready and willing spokespersons.

You can decide which makes for a better adult life. And whether it’s time to demand better of our government schools.

Especially if you believe ‘the children are our future,’ because if they are, we should start acting like it. And if you think more money is the answer, our little discussion is over.

Technorati Tags: schools,Maine,achievement

School enrollment continues to defy consultants and schoolie talking points; go figure!

2011-10-12T19:01:00.001-04:00

Editorial note to those who plead “the children are our future:” ‘the future ain’t what it used to be….’

And in a related story, shocking as it may be, those ever-present, expert consultants may not be much good for anything but telling you what you want to hear.

Dateline Brunswick, Wednesday October 12: We have it on solid authority that the Brunswick School Department will report total current enrollment of 2,456 to the Maine DOE this week.

That’s down about 900, or 27%, from pre-base closure days.

Significantly less than expert consultants would have had us believe. In more than one elaborate study following announcement of base closure, at who knows what cost, they noted our military dependent enrollment was 660, or at that time, 20% of the system total. We’ve lost the Durham tuition kids, of course, but that wouldn’t account for the difference.

But no problem, because the consultants asserted the loss of military students would be at most a temporary blip on the radar screen; we’d soon be swimming in student growth to replace the military kids. And our local “Brunswick will continue to grow” chorus was right there to back them up and keep the Kool Aid pitchers full.

The consultants did have a problem as to the specifics. Unable to make up their mind, or plan a decision, the seers at Planning Decisions gave us a choice of three different ‘models’ for future enrollment. For the current school year, those models predicted 2,974 (518, or 21%, beyond reality), 2873 (417, or 17% above reality,), and 2704 (248, or 10% over reality.)

Curiously, PD concluded that no matter which model we chose, the enrollment totals in 2016-2017 would magically, divinely, be exactly the same: 2927. Not only that, but the three components of the total: K-5, 6-8, and 9-12, each ended up at precisely identical numbers no matter the model chosen. On its face, this alone should have been reason enough to summarily dismiss the entire study, and to refuse payment.

This inexplicable long term outcome is equivalent to saying it doesn’t matter which route you take to go from here to Louisville, KY, because in the end, the mileage and driving time will be identical. Unless, that is, the consultants were simply echoing the outcome someone in authority told them they wanted.

Based on results over the years, we shouldn’t be condemned for beginning to think consultants are the castoffs and dregs of other professions. How the hell do outfits like this survive in the marketplace, except for the benevolence of OPM spending ‘officials’ unwilling or unable to do the work on their own, and looking for suitable covering for their tuchus?

Like it or not, evidence is clear that the town, the region, and the state are fundamentally bleeding people, especially young people.

In spite of rosy ‘repopulation figures’ for McKeen St. housing, and how the schoolies declared this ‘affordable housing’ would flood our schools with new students.

In spite of Ostrich articles claiming Stowe school enrollment is exceeding expectations, and pronouncements that enrollment in other schools is ‘right on track,’ even if the ‘track’ isn’t the one consultants said we were on.

In spite of glib assurances from local real estate mavens and parents at this year’s budget hearings that “people move to Brunswick because of our great schools.” As we wrote then, on what basis is such greatness claimed?

We suspect, frankly, that school ‘greatness’ is akin to the sons of bitches theory we advanced several days ago. Politicians are all SOB’s except for OUR SOB. By the same token, “it’s all the other schools that are underperforming; OUR schools are GREAT!”

This latest enrollment report raises cost per student by another $564 a year compared to the figures this time last year, and more than 10% in the last two years, even with schools being closed, and a new ‘more efficient school’ carrying much of the elementary load.

Maybe those 100 folks projected to be coming to town every day on the Amtrak will be school children who could help reverse the tide of student losses. Oh wait; it looks suspiciously like train passenger estimates might not be quite as high as originally thought; see previous post.

With a little encouragement, maybe one of these days reality will sink in: Maine demographics show a death spiral. Yesterday ‘the county,’ maybe tomorrow, the Midcoast.

Perhaps the usual suspects should consider getting on the bandwagon heading away from managing our demise, and heading towards seeing there is a future for Maine’s people, and people for Maine’s future.

Instead of worrying about creating national parks and stopping ‘massive development.’ Yah sure. That’s the number one problem facing Maine.

But there is good news to report. Kool Aid continues to fly off the shelves in Brunswick.

So for those of you so-inclined, the Kool Aid lamp is lit; drink it if you got it. And try not to spill any, because it can stain the pristine public ways in Fantasyland, and we can’t have that.

Oh, and one more last thing. If officials would simply tell Side what they want to hear, we’d be happy to provide it in document form for a price well below that of prevailing GoCoInCo rates.

And you know you can trust us on this, because we’re not like all the others.

Technorati Tags: Brunswick,schools,Kool Aid,consultants

Well, if you can’t take a joke…..

2011-10-12T17:02:00.001-04:00

OK, we were only kidding about that parking garage!

We remember some years back when Jim Ashe, erstwhile Brunswick School superintendent, decided to employ some ever so helpful members of the Government Consultant Industrial Complex to prepare applications for state funding to replace one or more of our schools. At a council meeting, he told all assembled that he wasn’t proposing or planning to build a new school, ‘but just wanted to see it state funding was even a possibility.’

We didn’t recognize Kool Aid as quickly back then as we do now, so his explanation was taken at face value. Big mistake. He knew full well that if any of the applications were approved, it was a political certainty that town folk would be powerless to stop the tsunami of “it’s for the children” publicity oozing from the schoolies.

Once an application was sort of approved, we heard it all. “We can’t turn down a ‘free’ school; that would be crazy;” “if we don’t take the money, someone else will just get it; it won’t save anything;” etc.

What a snow-storm descended upon us. It didn’t hurt, of course, that our own Johnny Richardson (remember him??) was then a major power in the legislature, and prepared to ‘help’ our application succeed. We seem to recall there was an unexplained expansion of the approved list by one application after the first results were published. Funny how that works.

The Jim Ashe we refer to is the very same one who moved on to take the place of our current Town Manager, across the bridge in that uppity little backwater with the fancy-schmancy municipal complex.

Recent news reports about the proposed downtown Brunswick multi-level parking garage (take that, Topsham!) stirred a rush of fond memories from those glory years. You can find the report here:

Without grant, Brunswick sees no need for downtown garage.

Turns out our application to fund construction of the garage was denied. Looks like this is a time when local SOB’s failed to come through. (Note to Senator Stan, the minority man: if you want to achieve lofty OUR SOB stature, you’re gonna have to do better than this! You will be running again, right?)

But guess what! Turns out we were only kidding, in a manner of speaking, about the need for that big city parking structure. So no harm done, apparently. You’d think kidding about the need for a $3.4 million capital project would be a no-no. And you would be wrong on this, like so many other times when you think rational thoughts.

We’d like to know who the consultants were that helped us out on this application, so we can watch to see if they get any more of our tax dollars. Hopefully not, but you know the old saying!

One of the more ‘fascinating’ passages in the report is this one:

But town staff now say that additional parking there may no longer be necessary.

Town Manager Gary Brown said based on conversations he has had with the Northern New England Passenger Rail Authority, which operates Amtrak's Downeaster, the demand for long-term passenger parking may not be as great as initially expected.

What??? Could this be the first ‘walking back’ of the rosy projections that the train would bring 35,000 visitors a year to Brunswick, or 100 a day? Say it isn’t true; we aren’t prepared for an attack of the vapors! Trusting citizens have long been convinced the train would bring ten times the visitor traffic of the current bus service, because, well, just because!

As a closing note, our Town Manager indicated he may bring in someone from the trusty Government Consultant Industrial Complex (GoCoInCo??) on a slightly different question:

Brown said he is considering contracting with a parking consultant to determine what the demand could be when the train service begins.

The results should be interesting, assuming it isn’t the same consultant that helped us with the grant application for the garage. Or the ones that sold us on the back in parking spots on Station Avenue.

Last thing we need around here is a multi-story parking garage with a corkscrew ramp system that you have to drive up backwards in order to “calm” the parking lot. Although it might fit nicely with the emerging Disneyesque zeitgeist here in town. We might even have the exterior done in a Matterhorn motif, painted by willing members of our local creative economy.

I wonder if we’d be able to use the old E tickets we have saved up from years ago? Hopefully the line won’t be too long. We’re getting too old to wait for our thrills.

Technorati Tags: Brunswick,consultants,parking,kidding,SOBs

No-bid naughtiness, Municipal style

2011-10-11T19:02:00.001-04:00

Remember during the Bush administration (“do you miss me yet?”) how we were constantly hammered with news reports of no-bid contracts being given to Haliburton, the company once headed by Dick Cheney, VP to President Bush? It goes without saying that government procurement activities, given the absurdly huge sums involved, and the political meddling always present, provide more than enough opportunity for mischief, or far worse. More about that in upcoming posts.

Funny, then, how no one makes an issue of no-bid contracting by local government, in this case, the Town of Brunswick, and the Brunswick School Department. Contracting that has clearly political implications. There’s enough here of interest that you’d think any newspaper worth its salt would have an investigative reporter digging into the subject. Which explains why The Ostrich hasn’t so much as mentioned the subject.

Let’s take things one at a time. You may have heard of the Maine Municipal Association, a non-profit enterprise that is, in effect, a wholly owned subsidiary of all but one or two municipal governments in Maine. The MMA is a highly visible presence in Augusta, lobbying for the interests of said governments, most often in opposition to the interests of individual taxpayers who fund them. They dig their heels in whenever the slightest challenge to government status quo arises. Think TABOR and other recent initiatives.

We know a little about MMA operations. Their operating revenue derives from two sources. The first is dues charged to member municipalities, which amounts to roughly $1 million per year. The second is insurance operations, in which they provide various forms of coverage to member municipalities. Profit from this activity is in the range of $8 million a year.

You can trust us on this; our numbers are in the right range.

The $8 million in profits from insurance operations has largely been used to fund a variety of partisan political activities. Especially campaigns to defeat or approve citizen initiatives on behalf of their municipal government members.

One might reasonably ask, therefore, whether towns are getting the best possible deals on their insurance coverage. Especially if they are not sending it out for bids on an annual basis, commensurate with the annual budget cycle.

We’re not sure how much Brunswick pays to the MMA for insurance products, but we will follow up and report to you when we get the answer.

Now let’s move on to the other face of this phenomenon. The Maine Education Association is the statewide teachers’ union, and they are immensely powerful in matters that drive school department budgets. Surprise, surprise; they also operate an insurance business in addition to basic member representation services.

We are not nearly as familiar with MEA operations as we are with those of the MMA, so we won’t make any estimates of their scope. We note, however, that the Brunswick School Department employs many more than town government, and their budget is more than 60% of overall town spending.

We presume, then, that the School Department spends more on insurance products with the MEA than the municipal side does with the MMA. Again, you have our word that we will do our best to run these figures to ground.

The teachers’ unions, at both the state and national level, are far more engaged in partisan political advocacy than is the MMA. We conclude that their insurance operations are more lucrative. And we can easily imagine that purchasing insurance through the union is a non-negotiable aspect of teachers’ contract discussions.

Where are we going with this? We’re going to a conclusion that the financial interests of taxpayers are ill-served by the insurance purchase processes of both municipal government and the school department. And that it’s time that both put the purchase of all insurance out to bid on the open market as a matter of course.

Each of you reading this should contact your town councilor and school board member to demand that they see that this happens. If they won’t, you have evidence that being a good steward of taxpayer resources is not a priority for them.

Old and lazy as we are, you have our personal commitment to look into a statewide effort to stimulate rigorous competition, on an annual basis, for this insurance coverage. If the MMA and MEA win that competition, fine. They will have structured their pricing to win. If not, they will have been displaced by private sector providers who offer a more competitive product.

Either way, taxpayers win. Who can argue with the motivation and the outcome?

Other than those who believe government monopolies are a good thing. And that local insurance agencies shouldn’t have a chance to save us money.

Technorati Tags: Brunswick,MMA,MEA,insurance,competiton

The Impossible Dream: ‘fair-share’ based economic salvation

2011-10-11T15:50:00.001-04:00

The whole ‘fair-share’ thing we hear so much about these days has been driving us nuts for years, largely because the word ‘fair’ is so subjective and nebulous. It reeks of sensitivity and ‘justice’ of whatever sort you prefer, but it’s impossible to pin anyone down on just what they mean by it.

We remember years ago when a former prominent council woman here in town was decrying the ‘constant cuts in education’ and holding up other budget straw-men to lure beleaguered taxpayers into her web.

We asked her if the current taxes we pay aren’t enough, just what would be enough in her opinion. As best we can recall, she answered she “believed in fair taxation,” and then used her bully pulpit to change the subject. You’ll forgive us, we hope, if we tell you we do our best not to recall any more about those days than we absolutely have to.

Back to the dream du-jour. A goodly portion of our ruling aristocracy is currently making the case, over and over, that all our budget and public debt problems could be solved if only ‘the wealthy were made to pay their fair share.’ Our own Congress-critter, one Rochelle Pingree Sussman, publicly stated “It’s time for the rich to start paying their fair share” in response to the President’s call for a new stimulus package.

We’re counting on her to chide her hedge-fund manager multi-zillionaire husband S. Donald, who provides her with private jet transportation, into paying HIS fair share, and we can’t wait to see what fair means in their little love-nest. Oops…..might that mean he has to move his little nest back to the states, instead of claiming residency on some remote island? No problem; it shouldn’t take ‘an act of congress’ to make that happen.

It appears that the simple premise highlighted above is the leading rationale for the numerous “occupy xyz” encampments going on around the country as we speak. At least for those ‘campers’ who have any clue as to why they are taking part. Many don’t, if you watch the news.

There’s only one problem with this premise, and you might say it’s a really, really big one. Here’s the good part; it doesn’t depend on what you think ‘fair’ means.

Numerous reports have shown that even if you take every red cent the wealthy earn in this country, it wouldn’t remotely approach the revenue needed to support government’s reckless, drunken spending habits. Here’s one such report.

The ‘money’ quote in this column is this:

Here’s the bottom line — there just aren’t enough rich people to pay the government’s bills, even if you confiscate every dime of income from every millionaire and billionaire in the country. If we give Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Barack Obama all the tax increases they are demanding, it won’t cover one tenth of the annual deficit of $1.6 trillion. We would still have to borrow well over $100 billion a month to pay for current spending.

This and similar reports are based on widely available government data, and as yet, we have seen not a single attempt to prove that this ‘bottom line’ is wrong. In keeping with modern political practice, though, that hasn’t stopped the demagogues from riding the same one trick pony round and round the mulberry bush.

We’re pretty confident that adding the Bowdoins and Harvards and others to ‘the wealthy’ in the equation would have a negligible effect on the analysis. Not that anyone in the aristocracy would support doing so; let’s face it, there’s a line even ‘progressive’ elites won’t cross. Especially this one.

The article goes on to describe America’s long-standing love affair with European style ‘social-democracy,’ which most of us see as socialism of one form or another. You should be aware of this ‘social-democracy,’ since it’s currently bringing down various European Union economies, and causing riots in the streets. Not a good omen for affairs here in the ‘new world.’

Making reference to the proposal for a new stimulus package, labeled as a ‘jobs plan,’ and payed for by the new fairer share from the evil wealthy, the author points out that after the first stimulus bill was passed,

the private sector lost 2.5 million jobs, but the federal government added 416,000.

In other words, the first bill wreaked havoc on the private sector that creates wealth and real jobs, and fostered unsustainable growth in the public sector, which by definition does neither, while creating additional burden on a shrinking private economy.

Think about that: 416,000 new jobs in the federal government alone. That’s probably close to the entire work force in the state of Maine, if we had to guess.

If this doesn’t scare the bejeezus out of you, nothing will, or you aren’t paying attention. But excuse us if we try one more time to frighten you into doing so:

Vaclav Klaus, president of the Czech Republic, recently warned about the perils of following Europe’s lead, “Europeans today prefer leisure to performance, security to risk-taking, paternalism to free markets, collectivism and group entitlements to individualism. … The critical situation in Europe today is visible to everybody. It is not possible to hide it. … So maybe Europe’s crisis today will at least help you in America turn back toward freedom.”

We’ll say it one more time: no one, repeat no one, has mounted a credible proof that the underlying assertion – that the ‘wealthy can pay all of government’s bills – is correct.

Be afraid; be very afraid. Rampant denial of reality is becoming the norm.

Wishing upon stars won’t get us out of this one. Nor will anything short of staring the truth in the face and saluting it.

Technorati Tags: fair share,wealthy,impossible dreams

Wishing upon a star….for non-profit status

2011-10-11T14:30:00.001-04:00

Gee, Uncle Walt, can we be a non-profit too? ‘Cause after thinking about all the other non-profits and how nice everyone treats them, we think we’re just as deserving as they are. And it sure would be nice to save all that money on taxes, just like they do.

We plan to call ourselves The Poppycock Public College of Disturbing and Embarrassing Societal Realities. It has a nice ring to it, we think, and we’re hoping TinkerBell will sign on as our mascot.

Here are our qualifications for this esteemed economic status:

We are an educational institution, just like Bowdoin College, the widely revered bastion of intellectual superiority here in our little town. Everything we do is intended to educate somebody, somewhere, sometime.
We are clearly non-profit. We haven’t made one black cent since beginning operations, and we don’t expect we ever will. You might say we are the poster child for non-profit cachet.
Our meager nest-egg wouldn’t make rounding error range for the near billion dollar cache of cash the little college is sitting on.
We’re lucky if we can turn a 4% annual return on our nest egg, compared to their near-fantasy level of 22% in this recession plagued economy.
We’ve been paying our fair share of taxes for as long as we can remember, and thanks to our town and those who don’t, our share keeps getting bigger and bigger.

That pretty much wraps it up, Uncle Walt, so we’d appreciate anything you can do to help us out on this.

If you can’t grant our wish, could you at least do something to see that the other prominent non-profit here in town has their status changed to more accurately reflect their wealth and highly profitable operations? That would be the fair thing as far as the rest of us tax-paying schlemiels are concerned.

Besides, we hear they are dead set against tax breaks and loopholes for the wealthiest in this country, so they’re probably already at work on the necessary legal documents. So it shouldn’t take much ‘star power’ to make our wish come true.

All the schlemiels will be very grateful when municipal property tax revenues increase by 50% or more in one swell foop. We promise that if you ask what they’re gonna do to celebrate, they will all answer “We’re going to Disneyland!”

So this is win-win, good buddy!

Technorati Tags: Wishing,Bowdoin College,non-profits

McClellan Building: Fantasy Land Castle, Times Record II, or both?

2011-10-03T17:25:00.001-04:00

As you probably know, our Town Parents (‘Fathers’ would be politically incorrect, and we can’t bring ourselves to say Town ‘Mothers’) are in discussions with Bowdoin College about acquiring the relatively new McClellan building at the corner of Union St. and Station Ave. in exchange for The Longfellow School Building and property. Expectations are that the Bowdoin building would become the new home of our municipal offices.

Visions of sugar plum fairies and TinkerBell ignite the imagination at the promise of our very own Fantasy Land Castle working its magic on all who would visit here. Combined with the local train station, images of a municipal Disneyland, fashioned after the original, begin to appear. We can even see a bottomless vernal pool where fairies tend their shrimp, while Small World like boats carry unbelieving children and adults alike. Do you think lobsters could be part of the mix? And a submarine ride?

The possibility of acquiring the McClellan building, while attractive on its face, stirs up unhappy memories of what might politely be called Brunswick’s undistinguished facility stewardship and planning record. While there are too many examples to list, let’s recall just a few.

A classic and much loved municipal building, smack in the middle of downtown on Maine Street, was demolished to make room for the now departed Grand City department store, and replaced with the civic embarrassment at 28 Federal Street. Town officials have been trying to escape this facility for years, although considerable sums have been invested in consultants to suggest how the sow’s ear could be turned into a silk purse.
False starts on public safety facilities have been frequent, and lately, plans for multiple new facilities are once again on the table. Citizen opposition to prior plans, as shown in a referendum, following which the council said ‘we got the message,’ have strangely been forgotten.
School buildings have not been well maintained, and are tossed aside as so much dead weight when pretty new structures paid for with ‘free money’ from the state are suggested.
The former Times Record building on Industry Road was purchased by the town in a perfect example of governmental incompetence in managing and executing capital facility programs. And now it sits largely abandoned, waiting only, we suppose, for a multi-million dollar ‘remediation proposal.’ Which may well consist of just bulldozing it down, burying not only the acquired building, but also the half million or more in improvements made on behalf of a local community college.

It’s no secret that we supported the purchase of the TR building, based on the size and price, and having been in the building more than once. Tacit in that support, in which we were not alone, was an expectation that paid town professionals would conduct due diligence before committing us to a purchase contract.

We were silly enough to consider such foresight de rigueur, as we would for any purchase of an existing home or other structure. You hire a building inspector; how hard is that? How much could that cost? You don’t finalize plans to buy the building until you know and understand what they find.

Silly is right. The town bought the building for what seemed a great price, only to find after closing that it needed renovations of more than three times the purchase price! Our leaders were shocked, shocked we say.

We’ll let you decide whether the shock was of the ‘crocodile’ variety, given the lust for new and elaborate Taj Mahals to foster community pride, and making sure neighboring backwaters don’t continue to embarrass us. Be careful though; buying into the crocodile theory could lead to speculation about deeper mysteries associated with taking the old building off the owner’s hands.

Looking into things after the fact, it appears we decided that due diligence is for little people, and instead, we hired – you guessed it – consultants to examine the building. From the report we saw, that consultant concluded that while the building had ‘some’ issues, overall it was in surprisingly good shape.

Somehow, in the months between that report and completing the purchase, the building suffered severe decline. At least if you were to judge by the renovation estimates. Just about every aspect of the place was deemed in dire straits and in need of replacement, but by then the town had become the ‘proud owners’ of the facility.

And so those best laid plans for improving municipal facilities suddenly became DOA, stunning local officials and stimulating much wringing of hands. Perplexed looks were common-place as the consequences of our undeserved misfortune sank in.

Which leads us to consider the plans of the moment. The plans for the McClellan building, that is. We want to believe that a lesson has been learned, and that true due diligence will precede finalization of any deal.

We want to believe that, but we can imagine a story line for doing exactly the opposite. It goes like this:

“Bowdoin has made a good faith offer, and it would be ungracious and thoughtless of us to suggest there might possibly be any problems with the building. We can’t risk undoing the fragile balance holding the proposal together. And besides, the building is nearly brand new; what could possibly be wrong with it?”

As to that last point, we say poppycock! We built our house 14 years ago, and within the first ten years, we had two significant episodes of structural damage from water incursion, both caused by minor anomalies in the installation of flashing. The damage only became apparent when our painter began to do some exterior maintenance. In other words, even ‘brand new’ buildings can have significant problems hiding from normal view.

The only way to avoid this kind of surprise is to make sure we bring on board an experienced municipal facility consultant to guide us in closing the deal with Bowdoin College.

Continuing with the possibility of a classic governmental SNAFU, we also are confident that upon completing the swap, if they should indeed do so, it won’t be long before we begin to hear the stories about how officials “didn’t realize how much work would have to be done to make the building suitable for town purposes.”

We don’t imagine, for example, that the building has council chambers of appropriate character ready to be occupied. Nor space set up for serving the public like the codes, tax collection, assessing, and town clerk offices do. And how much do you think changing the exterior to look like a castle is going to cost, complete with night sky special effects?

There’s got to be a number of other details that simply cry out for ‘doing it right and doing it now.’ You know, “we basically got the building for nothing, so even with the spending we need to do, the town is still saving a fortune.”

Coming up with the right customization plan is going to take an experienced consultant familiar with facility acquisition and the complex needs of municipal staff. Fortunately, a local firm, Eaton Peabody, has the expertise and personnel to handle this challenging assignment.

In case you weren’t aware, Don Gerrish, our former Town Manager, is now on Eaton Peabody’s staff. He just might be the right fit for the job, and the effort shouldn’t cost more than a few hundred large.

Why? Because he was the man in charge for the acquisition of the old Times Record building, the one that may soon be tossed on the ash heap of Brunswick town facilities.

So we shouldn’t have to worry about making the same mistakes that look like they will lead to sending millions down the rat hole. Don surely learned from the surprises encountered on that undertaking.

We’re confident that if you call Eaton Peabody to ask, they’ll probably say “and you can trust us on this, because we’re not like all the others.” If that’s not enough to make you happy, then we don’t know what could.

Except having your own star to wish upon.

Technorati Tags: Brunswick,FantasyLand,facilities,Bowdoin College

Bits and pieces….the weekend version

2011-10-02T20:53:00.001-04:00

Sand gets in your eyes

As long as we’re in the frame of mind to discuss things getting in your eyes and obscuring your vision, we might as well dip into the rich mine of Ostrich imagery.

That moniker, as you well know, derives from the view that our ‘award winning’ local print media outlet frequently sticks its editorial head in the sand. Consequently, they often end up with sand in their eyes, which makes it ever so difficult for them to see clearly. Especially if they make things worse by rubbing their eyes.

We hope this explains a clearly misguided ‘view’ in their pages in recent weeks, because if it doesn’t, things are much worse on Industry Road than we thought.

Just about a month ago, they editorialized on safety in the vicinity of the new Harriet Beecher Stowe School.

“The beautiful new building represents a sound investment in this community’s future and an integral component of state, regional and local Brunswick Naval Air Station closure comeback strategies.”

We won’t touch upon the ‘comeback strategies’ concept now; that in itself is worthy of full staff attention beyond what we can offer at the moment. Instead, since we drive by said school on a nearly daily basis, we fixated on the ‘beautiful new building’ phraseology.

We ask you: do you know anybody who has driven by the new school, and told you how “beautiful” it is? If you do, you have what we politely call an ‘unusual’ circle of acquaintances. or friends, if that be the case.

In case you do, The Ostrich would love to get their names and addresses, because they seem like perfect candidates to sign up for a prepaid subscription.

You might even negotiate a finder’s fee. Which you could use to buy eyewash for your friends.

All politics is local, and so are double standards

Years ago, and we don’t remember where, we came across a commentary about congressional corruption. It included a passage that read something to the effect that “all politicians are crooked sons-a-bitches, but Congressman Porkbelly is OUR son-of-a-bitch.”

It made the point quite clearly that most people think the problem is with everyone else’s congress-critters, while our very own such critter is different, because he/she focuses their corruption on our local best interests.

This is the very essence of pork-barrel politics, and is, if you think about it, the heart of the money-driven, special interest, big-government corruption and pandering that is about to bring the American experiment to an ignominious down-fall.

Here at Side, we have always been naive enough to believe we elect US Senators and Representatives to represent us in matters of national interest, such as defense, protection of our inalienable rights, and preservation of our Constitutionally based principles, especially the notion of limited government. As opposed to doing their best to raid the local treasury to serve local interests, thereby ensuring that they maintain their protected status as OUR sons-a-bitches.

This places us squarely in a very small and dying minority. Our membership there is clearly demonstrated by the news and dynamics associated with redevelopment of the Brunswick Naval Air Station.

How often have you read about the evils of ‘tax loopholes,’ ‘subsidies,’ and ‘corporate welfare’ in the pages of The Ostrich and other more prominent news outlets, or heard about them from pundits on the broader national stage? Here in Brunswick, we’re blessed with more than our fair share of folks convinced that profit based enterprises in the private sector, particularly heartless corporations, are the very soul of inhumanity and social injustice.

Even if millions and millions have built retirement nest-eggs by sharing in their success. Including, we are sure, a goodly percentage of those whose wagon-wheels are the squeakiest.

Which makes recent reports all the more revealing of local duplicity. Such duplicity, we would think, renders the oft-professed sanctimony null and void, unless you have a taste for hypocrisy in its most artful and local forms.

A bit of independent study will quickly reveal there are all sorts of tax incentives (‘loopholes’), subsidies (‘investments’), and grants (‘corporate welfare’) associated with base redevelopment. These are ‘targeted’ towards those who shop around for the best deal they can get from taxpayers. While Oxford Aviation seems to have faded from the local radar screen, they were the poster child for such shopping, including the use of F. Lee Bailey and John Richardson as sales agents for their efforts.

We refer here to recent reports of $1.7 million in federal funds approved to support redevelopment activity at what is now known as Brunswick Landing, but will always be the former base to us. That sum includes $700,000 to directly benefit Kestrel Aircraft.

Even better, this ‘investment’ will ‘leverage’ equal funding from Maine taxpayers borrowed via bond issues.

But it’s ok, because all the sons-a-bitches associated with this economic ‘stimulus’ are OUR sons-a-bitches. It’s those bastards in all the other states that are causing our problems.

We just can’t understand why the uninformed dolts in those other states don’t wake up and do something about it, so the rest of us don’t have to bear the burden of their irresponsible and self-centered local agendas.

In the midst of the “Great Recession,” local non-profit has a good year

You know what a ‘non-profit’ is, right? We’re loaded with them here in Maine. They qualify for special status that makes them exempt from just about every form of taxation that afflicts for-profit enterprises and the rest of us who pay the freight charges.

They include everything from hospitals to public advocacy groups to charities to Churches to government enterprises. There’s even special non-taxable status that applies to the redevelopment of the former Naval Air Station. The details are complicated, but suffice it to say whatever success is achieved there will do virtually nothing to mitigate local and state tax burdens.

‘Non-profit’ status also applies to educational institutions like Bowdoin College. Words have meanings, the old saying goes, but that notion is a bit hard to swallow in light of recent reports.

We read in the local media that “Bowdoin College’s endowment is larger than ever before: just over $900 million.”

Turns out the endowment grew by more than 22% in the recent fiscal year. Not bad; how did you do in your IRA’s and 401k’s? We suspect Bowdoin has the inside advice of some real financial movers and shakers, given the successful hedge fund managers and other elites amongst its alumni base. Still, these numbers are stunning.

The fund made $164 million on its investments during this period. While the same article reports that Bowdoin’s investments had a losing year in the recent past, we recall not long ago reading that their endowment was less than $500 million. So by any measure, they have done well.

Very well, thank you, including growth attributable to new contributions. On the flip side, of course, are debits caused by dipping into the fund to finance operations and other vital expenditures, like replacing one ice arena with another ice arena. And embellishing their art museum with a $25 million renovation, which clearly improves the quality of instruction they provide to their art-deprived student body.

Either way, whether through the generosity of their donors, or their own investment strategy, Bowdoin has achieved results well beyond that of America’s best-known profiteering corporations. We’re confident that gains made by Bowdoin avoided the taint of free-market participation; that would be so totally counter to the global justice and socially responsible principles they espouse.

It’s fun to give some scale to these numbers. Bowdoin has about 1700 students as far as we know. So their endowment fund has a value of about $530,000 per student. Not bad; if they earned only 5% a year on these funds, well below their historic average, it would amount to roughly $27,000 per student.

We’re delighted that Bowdoin has been able to do so well in their investments, even though we’ve had starkly different results on our own. Petty jealousy is undignified, so we won’t belabor that point.

And we know well that questioning or challenging the college’s role as local taxpayer is heresy of the worst sort. Their moral superiority, as expressed in numerous ‘study concentrations’ of cultural enlightenment, more than compensates for any lack of financial load sharing with the local beneficiaries of their presence.

So what we are about to say should be considered off the record; the views of an inconsiderate, uninformed, and insensitive local gadfly. With such a freeing confession, here we go.

Any enterprise that makes 22% plus on its investment assets in a single year should be ashamed to claim ‘non-profit’ status, if not prohibited from doing so. Especially when those assets are in the range of several times their annual operating expenses.
Any such enterprise whose fair market appraised value would likely increase the total valuation of their home-town by 50% or more is not living up to their tacit obligation to share in the costs of the services from which they benefit.
Any such enterprise that is prone to poor-mouth its ability to participate financially in specific economic activities with their home town discredits and undermines their self-professed ‘responsible citizen’ status.

“Fair Share” anyone? We can’t help but wonder what the aggregate income and net worth of all living Bowdoin alumni who meet the current administration’s guidelines for ‘wealthy’ would be. And what their ‘fair share’ tax burden would amout to. Has anyone heard George Mitchell step before a microphone and ask to be taxed more lately?

Charities and Churches are one thing. Elite colleges awash in wealthy alumni, stunningly valuable real-estate and facilities, and huge stores of rapidly growing financial assets disgrace the very concept of non-profit status.

And even more, dishonor it. And those that do are sons-a-bitches, and we shouldn’t put up with it.

Lucky for us, Bowdoin College is OUR son of a bitch. So we shouldn’t really get our tassels in a knot.

Postlude

Geez, I’m one long-winded SOB. But at least I realize it. When I started this post, I had intended it to be short and sweet, but it seems I’m incapable of such brevity. The more I write, the more thoughts emerge, so the more I write, and well, you get the drift.

No wonder town councilors cringe when I show up at a meeting, and have a group case of the vapors if I approach the public podium with papers in hand.

Oh well; somebody’s got to hold the local blowhard extraordinaire office. That is what they called me, wasn’t it?

Technorati Tags: Brunswick,Bowdoin College,MRRA,duplicity

Green Gets In Your Eyes: Applied Ethanolomics and Passenger Rail

2011-10-01T14:11:00.001-04:00

As Yogi Berra might have said, “the future of passenger rail ain’t what it use to be.”

Remember the old ballad “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes,” by Clyde McPhatter and the Platters? If you do, and you danced teenage foxtrots to it like I did, you pretty much just gave up your age. I remember it well; the tune for sure, and most of the words, actually. I guess those first ‘coming of age’ close dances left quite am impression on me.

I’m thinking about writing a modern day version called “Green Gets In Your Eyes,” It’ll wax melodic about having your heart swept away by dreamy environmental nirvana, and how it clouds your ability to see the reality right in front of you. It probably won’t be too ‘danceable,’ as they used to say on American Bandstand, but I hope to give it a certain je ne sais quoi just the same.

By now you should be wondering what the hell I’m talking about, and why I don’t just get right to it. I could, but that wouldn’t be as much fun as amusing myself with scatter-brained analogies and other flights of fancy narrative.

Alright, then, since you insist, let’s get on with it. In my long and undistinguished career in the defense industry. I often heard it said that

“the Government wants to save money, and they’ll spend whatever it takes to do it.”

And it was quite often proven true, discouraging as that could be. I also had at least one major situation where we proposed a major system evolution that would have saved millions and millions, with almost no risk and no front-end investment, but the government was so distrustful of such proposals by industry that they wouldn’t let it get to first base.

A more contemporary version of the ‘save money’ quote above might go something like this:

“The government wants to go green and stop global climate change, and they don’t care how much environmental and economic damage it takes to make it happen.”

While there are doubtless hundreds of cases to prove the point, two immediately come to mind. The first is the Solyndra debacle, which has been all over the news recently, and is leading to discovery of many more examples of government ‘good intentions,’ or far worse, providing cover for bumbling, stumbling, and crony capitalism. Who knows; it might even lead to a bit more scrubbing of the fact sheets on the budding windmill business here in Maine. We just need to find our very own Don Quixote and his loyal squire, Sancho Panza.

The second is the whole ethanol goat-rope, or if you prefer, fiasco. What a brilliant example of the worst government is capable of when it decides to substitute its own perverted motivations and misguided logic for the self-regulation of free market forces. Made possible, of course, by unlimited access to opium (OPM-other people’s money), and when that runs out, printing and borrowing even more.

Let’s review some of the highlights of the great ethanol experiment, which at this point, is probably irreversible:

It reduces vehicle mileage typically by 10% or more; gee, thanks for the help, Senator Foghorn.
It props up farmers who couldn’t make it on their own. Just like all the other farm subsidies.
It diverts land away from other desirable crops and uses to grow corn.
It drives up the cost of a huge array of food products, including meats.
It causes mechanical problems in marine engines and small engines, like mowers, generators, etc. I’ve had these problems myself; nothing like having your generator quit an hour after the power goes out.
It costs more in fossil fuel based carbon footprint to manufacture and distribute than it saves by adding to gasoline. In other words, it increases greenhouse gases, rather than decreasing them.
It perpetuates destructive ‘you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours’ based politics.
It brings more big money distortion to our political system.
And these are just the obvious ‘benefits.’

Which reminds me of the old line about “Bob can seem a little off-putting when you first meet him, but once you get to know him, you’ll really dislike him.”

It’s like the geniuses who think buying an all electric car will completely eliminate their carbon footprint, and certify them for local hero status. You know, that gives me an idea. Given all the homes heated with fuel oil around here, there should be a fortune to be made selling fully-electric replacements for oil fired boilers. Just think of all the personal CO2 pollution that would eliminate! (Hey Stella! See if you can get in touch with Angus King, and tell him I’ve got an idea that should ‘blow’ him away.)

Which, in a very roundabout way, brings us to the punch line about government investment to bring back passenger rail as a means to reduce the carbon footprint of vehicular traffic on our highways and byways. We talked briefly yesterday about the relative carbon profiles of trains and buses here.

Side submits that the rationale that drives the near-religious fervor for passenger rail is a direct spin-off of the collective brilliance and wisdom reflected in the ethanol mandates and the absurd consequences they spawn. Politically, economically, and environmentally.

On second thought, maybe I should stop complaining, and head down to the local Kool-Aid emporium for a pint or two. Because the good news is that if the train doesn’t work out financially, the usual suspects will claim it’s because it was under-funded and the public wasn’t sufficiently educated.

Hence, it can all be fixed by spending even more; so new truckloads (or trainloads!) of free money should be coming our way. Opportunities for revered consultants should abound!

Matter of fact, if you’re a devotee of modern government economic planning theory, you should be hoping and praying it does fail, so we can get those borrowed dollars up here as fast as possible. Then things can really takeoff on the right side of the tracks. (You don’t know how hard it was for me not to type ‘left side of the tracks.’)

One more curiosity for you to ponder. In the current fiscal year, Brunswick will spend about $600,000 resurfacing roughly 3 miles of roadway. Without counting, let’s assume the Portland to Brunswick Amtrak extension passes through 7 towns. The track upgrade investment for the service is $35 million.

How much good could that money have done for the affected towns? Well, divided evenly that would equate to Brunswick spending $5 million on road resurfacing, or enough for 24 miles at the current rate, or the equivalent of 8 years worth at the ‘normal’ pace.

I’ll leave it to you to decide which use of the money would make a greater and more widely used improvement in our transportation infrastructure, remembering that we already have established bus service running between here and Portland.

As for us, it should be pretty clear that we’re on the Other Side of the prevailing local wisdom and socio-political consensus.

But hey, somebody’s gotta live on the wrong side of the right of way, figuratively speaking. And after all these years, we’ve come to appreciate the solitude, even if all the partying takes place on the other side.

Technorati Tags: passenger rail,trains,ethanol,green energy,enviromentalism

Wishing Upon A Star – a postscript.

2011-09-30T20:32:00.001-04:00

It should be patently obvious that Side has lost a few mph on its fast ball over the summer months, and that a rigorous training plan is necessary to get us back in the game. Ironically, we may remind you of the ‘Sox, but that proves you’re conditioned to accept major disappointment and then rise above it.

Wow….existential philosophizing and psycho-babble all in one paragraph. We may have lost something off our fast ball, but our screwball is still working!

We realized post-posting that we should have embellished our essay with appropriate audio-visual content, and we hope you’ll excuse our tardiness in doing so. Though late, the sentiments expressed in this clip are so germane to local attitudes and machinations that they still hit the target, whatever it might be.

There it is: Fantasyland on the Androscoggin. (That IS the Androscoggin, isn’t it????)

The real point of this follow-up, however, is to bring up the issue of global warming and greenhouse gas emissions as they relate to bringing the train to Brunswick. Brunswick and the surrounding area are privileged to be the home of many who would gladly give up their homes, their children, and their jobs if only it would result in one less milligram of CO2 being emitted into the atmosphere.

It’s our version of “An Inconvenient Truth.”

Given local quasi-religious commitment to mitigating global ‘climate change,’ shouldn’t the comparison between huge diesel locomotives pulling railroad cars and conventional diesel powered buses (rubber tired, to be clear) be at the core of this planning, even though it’s a fait accompli because of overriding electro-political factors?

Here’s some info on the Concord Coach buses currently running between Brunswick and Portland:

Our bus model is a Prevost x345 which has 375 horsepower. We encourage you to go to the American Bus Association’s website (http://www.buses.org/) as they have emissions research and reports information. They also have under the For Travelers tab on the right, The Green Choice which you may find as equally interesting.

Ride a Motorcoach -- The Greenest Approach

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Motorcoaches currently provide 206.6 passenger miles per gallon (MPG), more than double the second most fuel-efficient sector, commuter rail at 92.4 passenger MPG.

Transit buses achieve 31.4 passenger MPG, domestic air carriers achieve 44 passenger MPG, and single passenger automobiles achieve 27.2 passenger MPG. Each motorcoach has the potential of removing 55 autos from the highway. That's millions of cars not driven, saving fuel, cutting emissions and reducing congestion.

Click here to read a report from The Union of Concerned Scientists, which finds that travel by motorcoach is the greenest way to go.

Is there anyone out there who seriously wants to argue that running trains between Brunswick and Portland is more ‘earth-friendly’ and ‘climate-friendly’ than running buses? We’re not sure exactly which engine model will be used in the trains coming to town, but as you can see here, they all are in the 3000hp to 4000hp range.

We may be many years from our college engineering studies, but we’re pretty sure engines with thousands of horsepower burn a lot more fuel (and generate a lot more dreaded greenhouse gases) than engines with hundreds of horsepower. While we drank a lot of refreshing liquids in our college days, we assure you it wasn’t kool-aid.

None of this matters, though, when you’re a train-zealot committed to arguing that laws of economics and physics don’t matter when it comes to OUR town. The Brunswick Exception to said laws makes it all OK.

There’s a reason, or more accurately, multiple reasons that passenger trains have long since gone the way of the buggy whip, except in rare cases where public support justifies deep deficit operation. And even that is usually on extremely busy operating corridors.

Portland to Brunswick? Given the existence of bus service and all the other economic parameters, Side concludes that Amtrak service between the two points is the consequence of archetypical municipal-political-egomania.

This is a pervasive symptom of a plague infecting our nation, the most prevalent consequence of which is severe depletion of economic health. There are a number of ways to catch this plague, but it’s most easily contracted when you consume pork, no matter the recipe.

On a related note, we are convinced that a buggy-whip mill could reinvigorate the local economy, and we’d like to refurbish Fort Andross to start one. Does anyone have a connection that could get us a loan for $500 million or so to do so? We’ll even put solar panels on top of the building!

Like we’ve said before, you can trust us on this; we’re not like the others. And you know who they are.

At least you should.

By the way, if you don’t see any penguins strolling around town, you know who to blame. It won’t be the polar bears, so don’t try selling us that crazy. Polar bears haven’t been seen in Brunswick for years, ever since the icebergs in Coffin Pond melted.

Technorati Tags: Trains,global warming,kool-aid

Other Side News Alert: Fair Share Legal Theory pioneers in Brunswick, Maine

2011-09-28T21:32:00.001-04:00

Dateline Washington, D.C. and Brunswick, Maine:

Public discourse in the United States has been dominated in recent weeks by rhetoric insisting that ‘the wealthy need to pay their fair share,’ whatever the hell that might be. This political mandate has been embraced by those who believe that confiscating all earned income will go a long way towards reducing the annual federal deficit.

Responding to this imperative, various American billionaires, most prominently among them Warren Buffet, have gone public saying ‘Master, I have sinned. So let me pay more, more, more.’ Buffet has apparently been unable to find a way to pay more than the minimum his attorneys and accountants have determined he owes.

His pleading rings hollow, however, given reports that he is in arrears by a mere billion or so in prior tax obligations. No matter; we should all be shamed by his sincerity, humility, and integrity in taxation policy.

As anyone who studied advanced micro-economics in the third grade knows, the secret to financial success in our economically unjust society is to ‘find a need and fill it.’

For decades, thousands of tax attorneys have made billions minimizing tax exposure for their wealthy clients, ensuring that the nation accrues catastrophic deficits year after year. Only recently has guilt such as that expressed by Buffet and others of his ilk been so publicly proclaimed.

Buffet, worth something like $30 billion, is reportedly an honorable and forthright businessman. We are confident, though, that during his lengthy career as a wildly successful capitalist, Warren has spent millions and millions on lawyers charged with minimizing tax exposure for his business dealings.

If we are to believe his recent public posturing, Buffet and his humble compadres are sorely ashamed, and awash in guilt for selfish pre-occupation with their bottom line, even if they have been law abiding. According to their lawyers, that is.

On a similar more personal note, we have witnessed numerous civic minded individuals testifying they ‘would gladly pay higher property taxes’ to avoid ‘cutting the school budget.’ We can’t name any, however, because every time we heard someone say that, we could never get them to give their name and contact info for follow up by town officials.

Then there’s the Ostrich, which has lectured us ad nauseum on paying more taxes, the cost of democracy, et cetera, et cetera, et chunkus hurlium.

In view of the foregoing, the miserable state of our economy, and our loss of the Naval Air Station and Brunswick Park & Gardens, we are pleased to make a bold step forward in turning things around.

Other Side enterprises proudly announces the creation of a new legal enterprise: ‘FairShare.com.’

While not a law firm, FairShare.com will provide affordable and reliable legal advice to capitalists, wealthy individuals and the otherwise more fortunate who are verklempt over their puny tax obligations.

Our mission is to become the ‘center of excellence’ for paying more, for paying what’s right, for paying your ‘fair share.’ And we intend to do it right here in Brunswick, where fair share is a way of life.

Reflecting our commitment, we promise 72 hour turnaround in revising your tax returns (as far back as 10 years) to assuage your guilt, and to give you the satisfaction you deserve for paying more than the law requires. Should we fail to meet this promise, we’ll gladly increase your obligation at no extra charge.

While overpaying is fraught with complexities, our expertise provides the confidence you seek in paying your fair share, or more if at all possible. Your peace of mind is paramount in what we do, and we will strive to exceed your expectations in every regard.

At the moment, we’re looking for well known public figures to be our spokespersons on radio, TV, and internet ads. We expect the talent pool to be overwhelming both in size and fervor.

We also need qualified calculator operators; experience in multiplying, adding, and dividing is a plus, but is not required. Candidates accepted for these challenging jobs can expect to find lucrative careers as cashiers and toll collectors in future years.

To kick off our practice with a bang, FairShare.com is offering the following introductory fees for our services:

For Brunswick residents: 5% of your additional tax obligation.
For non-Brunswick Maine residents, like Chellie Pingree, Donald Sussman, etc, 10% of your additional tax obligation.
For non-Maine/non-Brunswick citizens, 15% of your added obligation, on which we will pay full income tax rates, unless we can find a tax attorney to get us off with less.

You can’t imagine how excited we are about this breakthrough in applied psycho-legal therapeutics, and how proud we are to put Brunswick on the map in this regard.

It’s the least we could do to see that you do the most you could do.

Technorati Tags: fair share,taxation

When you wish upon a star….

2011-09-25T21:01:00.001-04:00

(Note: this post has been updated to correct the horribly miscalculated numbers for BP&G. Apologies.)

Side doesn’t know how many of you remember the opening of the original Sunday Night Walt Disney Show, in which the singing of this theme set the stage for all things to follow, most notably the Disney belief in a purely magical existence. We can remember watching it raptly, and especially with our kids.

It occurred to us that the modern day equivalent of Uncle Walt’s optimism, at least as it relates to matters of governance, is finding consultants who have inside connections to the stars. We tried really hard to come up with some sort of rhyme that would make the case, but fell flat on our tuchus. And so we are reduced to dry and meaningless narrative to make our case.

Which is one hell of a segue into what follows. ‘Tortured’ comes to mind; but you’ve got to cut us some slack after months of absence. Let’s see if we can make the connection.

It shouldn’t come as any surprise to regular readers that this correspondent and Herschel Sternlieb are on completely different ends of the ideological spectrum.

So it may surprise you that we think of Herschel as a kind, honorable, and most decent member of our community. With one rare exception several years ago, Herschel is the only person who ever took the time to send us a personal note of thanks for something we wrote or said. He is, to put it simply, a prince of a man.

Which is why we are confident that forsaking his dream of creating ‘Brunswick Park and Gardens’ on the former Brunswick Naval Air Station property is more difficult than you might think. Herschel and his friends believed fervently that the concept was noble, workable, and economically viable.

One aspect of their fervor caught our attention, because it exemplifies the methodology (or should we say pathology?) for swaying public opinion, and more importantly, freeing up access to the public treasury.

The BP&G group claimed their development would draw 1 million visitors a year to Brunswick. That number can be difficult to grasp, just as the notion of borrowing $1.5 trillion a year at the federal level can be.

So let’s see what we can do to make it meaningful. Averaged over a year, 1 million visitors would amount to about 2,750 a day, every day of the year. Which translates to about 114 per hour, 24/7/365.

in other words, if you stood outside the gates of the proposed gardens, you would see a car nearly every minute of every hour of every day all year long bringing two people to visit the site. We’ll leave you to calculate how many visitors per hour would be necessary if they didn’t come 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 12 months a year to get to 1 million. (Here’s a clue: if it were 8 hours a day, 6 days a week, 8 months a year, it would be 625 per hour, or more than 10 per minute. Yikes times ten!)

There’s another way to appreciate what this number means. We happened to watch a special recently that focused on the state of Virginia. It talked about Colonial Williamsburg, a long established and very successful major public attraction.

They stated this destination draws ‘1 million visitors a year.’ Think for a moment about the historic relevance of Colonial Williamsburg as compared to what Brunswick Park and Gardens might be.

Consider the location of, and concentrated east coast metropolitan population that Williamsburg draws upon compared to what Brunswick would have access to.

Given these specifics, we have no choice but to conclude that BP&G advocates were either living in a fantasy world (the Disney connection!), or more likely, had employed a consultant who knows that you make your money by telling people what they want to hear.

This phenomenon is all too pervasive in public discourse in the modern era. We are convinced there is a ‘consultant industrial complex’ that exists to rationalize and lubricate the transfer of taxpayer funds to all manner of ‘investments’ and ‘public-private partnerships’ in the name of economic development, no matter how non-sensical they might be.

Here’s a couple of examples, in addition to the BP&G case.

Remember several months ago when the MRRA publicized the possible sale of the ‘hotel property’ on the former Brunswick Naval Air Station? As we recall, this property has something like 270 rooms.

The MRRA, in a brief publicity flourish, claimed that a number of commercial entities were interested in operating the facility, and that ‘studies had shown’ that the property would generate ‘50,000 room nights a year.’

That equates to booking nearly 140 rooms every night of the year. Which would mean there is a huge unfulfilled demand for hotel rooms in the area. Tell that to those operating established inns and motels in the region; tell them that demand exceeds supply by 140 rooms a night.

And then ask who paid for the consultants who came up with these numbers, and why the entire scenario evaporated in a matter of weeks.

Then there’s the Portland to Brunswick Amtrak extension. “Studies predict” that the result will be 36,000 new visitors to Brunswick per year. Or 100 per day.

No matter that the bus that runs between the train station in Portland and Brunswick averages about 10 passengers per day. And that the bus service can conveniently take you to Logan Airport to catch domestic and international flights, while the train can’t.

It must be the ‘romance of the rails’ that will attract customers to take a more expensive option with less flexibility. There’s a model to build an economic expansion on! And on which state and federal officials could justify, above and beyond that, a new ‘rubber tired bus service’ between Portland and Brunswick to pick up the slack.

Are you kidding? Is there any wonder we’re going broke in public sector finances?

Now we read that Amtrak extension funding is at risk. If you ask us, it should never have been authorized in the first place.

Related reports talk of six trains per day. We’ll assume that means three coming from Portland, and three going to Portland. if you believe the predictions of 36,000 passengers per year coming to Brunswick, that means an average of 33 passengers per train.

Or less than one bus can hold. How many cars will be on that train, and how many Amtrak employees, compared to the driver of one bus? A bus service that already exists, by the way.

Hopefully, someone wiser than us will soon explain what it is about the passenger train that makes more sense than a bus that provides better service and better convenience for air travel connections.

And it better not be ‘romance,’ because if that’s the best they’ve got, they can kiss our tuchus.

Romantic as that sounds, it doesn’t count for squat in the grand scheme of things.

Technorati Tags: Amtrak,buses,Brunswick,consultants

Ho-hum; quiet little Brunswick

2011-09-22T18:22:00.001-04:00

Things tend to be kind of quiet here in Brunswick, especially when certain esteemed media outlets are not publishing actively at the pace to which readers have become accustomed.

Fortunately, there are others who work hard to make sure that Brunswick isn’t too quiet!

Here’s a lovely and uplifting example; perhaps you’ll recognize someone you know, whether you want to admit it or not. You might even submit a comment citing them for their activism.

Or, on the other hand, we might have nothing more than, in the historic words of Rev. Al Sharpton, a bunch of ‘white interlopers.’

Should you see someone walking into a bank behind you with a video camera in hand, you might want to turn around and head for the exit.

Or another town, if that’s what it takes to avoid being profiled as an interloper by unprincipled media pundits.

Technorati Tags: Brunswick,democracy,moonbats