Time for your Monday Kool-aid shooter, compliments of the Ostrich..

On page 5 of today’s edition, following the time-honored tradition of citing another newspaper’s reporting to justify their own mis-uninformation, The Ostrich carried this little item about Governor John Baldacci and his budget stewardship:

Adjusted for inflation, the fiscal 2010-11 general fund budget of $2.69 billion is less than the budget Baldacci inherited when he became governor in 2003.

True, as far as it goes, which is not nearly far enough.  The general fund budget is less than half of total state spending, as we’ve reported over and over, most recently in this item.

If we told you that we spent far less on new vehicle purchases this year than we did ten years ago, would that convince you that our family spending is less than it was then?  We don’t think so, Tim.

So here we come again, reminding you over and over.  The reporting by “traditional media outlets” is at the best incomplete, and at the worst, intentionally culpable in misleading the public.

Want proof?  Look at the data here.  It’s up to date as of last month, and what is shows is that Maine’s total spending in 2003 was $5.68 billion, and in 2010, it is $7.73 billion.

You can say whatever you want about general fund spending, but there is no denying that Maine government is spending 36% more now than it did seven fiscal years ago.  Trying to suggest otherwise by selective choice of numbers is the worst kind of mis-uninforming.

It’s almost as if we need a government watchdog acting on our behalf to make sure we get the facts we need to understand what is really going on.

Nominees, anyone?

Technorati Tags: Ostrich,Maine,budgets,watchdogs,Kool-aid

Gown to Town: Stuff it, you ungrateful cretins!

We confess that it’s been some time since we gave thanks for the presence of Bowdoin College and its students in our otherwise hapless and hopeless town.  We have not been faithful in conducting a weekly homage to St. Polar Bear in gratitude for the Administration and students’ forbearance toward we the unwashed and unenlightened of Brunswick.

So it is with some humility that we pass along a well deserved wire-brushing from one of our betters in the Bowdoin class of ‘12.  Here are a few tempting tidbits from his (or her) letter in the Bowdoin Orient:

You know what's awesome about Brunswick? Bowdoin College. Without Bowdoin, what is Brunswick?

However, the point is Brunswick thrives on the presence of Bowdoin College, both financially and culturally. 

And definitely don't welcome Brunswick residents into your lives, because they tolerate you less than you could ever imagine.   

Suitably chastised, we realize now that we should be thanking these transient party animals for the influence they exert over our local election outcomes.  And how grateful we should be for the pennies on a dollar the College pays in property taxes compared to the rest of us.

Color us suitably ashamed. We’ll announce a sackcloth and ashes parade through the campus as soon as we get approval from the President’s Office.

Technorati Tags: Brunswick,Bowdoin College,elitism

The Ostrich wins another award….

Dewey defeats Truman – the Maine version.

We have no love lost here on Side for The Ostrich, as regular readers know.  Sometimes we even call it the “NOTWIUN,” suggesting that the editors seem at times to be actively working to keep us in the dark, or even worse, in the wrong room, in the wrong house, on the wrong street.

In this recent post, we went so far as to say this:

Sad to say, as we see it here in the offices, we’d be better off without ‘watchdogs’ like The Ostrich.  We need information, not mis-information.

The last 24 hours provide a perfect example of just how feckless Ostrich editors can be.  And why “traditional media” is gasping for breath to keep itself alive.  We thank them for making our point.

The proof before us is today’s edition, in which The Ostrich confirms how they lag in the news cycle, rather than lead.

The front page fails to report the news widely known elsewhere that Paul LePage had won the race for Governor, and that Eliot Cutler had conceded.

We got the biggest guffaw, though, from this headline on Page 5:  “Triumphant Berry eyes speakership.”  Becoming speaker, generally speaking, requires being a member of the majority party.

We suppose some readers might be surprised, but Republicans won the majority in both the House and Senate in the Maine legislature yesterday.  Ergo, Berry may be “eyeing a speakership,” but not of the House.  Maybe he’ll be presiding over his kitchen, or barn, or his Kool-Aid distillery.

Here at Side, we knew this at 5:30 am this morning, before we left for an early meeting in the capitol area.  Ostrich editors, if they cared, and were awake, could have known this by the same time, more than enough lead time to correct the Berry headline.

We wish to thank them for continually confirming why our disdain and distrust for them is warranted.  In the process, they render accusations that we are cynical, smarmy, and hapless critics wholly without foundation.

Time to shut down the gloat machine.  We do hope we’ll see you all at Berry’s celebration of his ascendancy to the Speakership, following in the footsteps of such well known legends as John (“Johnny Protocols”) Richardson, Libby Mitchell, and John Martin.

Assuming it isn’t held on the same night as the Dewey celebration. 

We want to provide first hand coverage of both, but we can only stretch our resources so far.  Unless you send lots of shekels our way, in which case we might stretch a bit further.

Good night, Mrs. Calabash.

Technorati Tags: Ostrich,Berry,Speaker,NOTWIUN

More “great publicity” for Maine….

We don’t think very highly of USA Today, but  we ran across a copy of today’s edition when we were out dumpster diving for original news stories.

Lo and behold, the front page referred to a Section A article about Maine, entitled “Population drop-off vexes Maine residents.”  Click on the title link to read the entire article.

Here’s a revealing excerpt or two:

Maine was one of three states whose population declined from 2008 to 2009 (Michigan and Rhode Island were the others). For the first time in 209 years, neighboring New Hampshire has more people than Maine, according to Census estimates.

The drop in Maine stems mostly from young people leaving for school and jobs and the birth rate dropping as those left behind age. Maine's median age (half are younger, half are older) is 42.2 — oldest in the USA.

Nothing but encouragement there, right?  Then this:

Two-thirds of the state's 1.3 million people live in the lower third. The timber and paper mill industries that supported rural northern counties near Canada consolidated, and thousands of jobs disappeared.

"Clearly, the place has been grappling for 25 years with massive restructuring," says Mark Muro, director of policy for the Brookings Institution's Metropolitan Policy Program.  (Oh yeah?  Could you give us 2 or 3 “clear” examples, Mark?)

Two quick comments on the article.  First, we can’t help but wonder what triggered the appearance of this item.  We’re not ready to believe that USA Today sends reporters out turning over rocks to find stories of note.  We believe, instead, that someone in the ruling class made a call or two, or had a PR consultant do it for them, to stimulate interest in the subject and the related reportage, which in all likelihood consists of contrived and pre-approved rhetoric.

Second, the various remedies mentioned by the individuals quoted in the article are the same old tired approaches that have put us here in the first place.  In a nutshell, use consultants, grants, and other government involvement , coupled with vacuous mantras like “the creative culture” as the rosy route to revival.

In so many words,their prescription for success boils down to nuggets like “networking and advertising” in new and better ways. So they sip wine in Camden and talk about such things.

Most who have stared our problems in the eye know there is a higher reality; that the most important priority is to remove our well-known, self-inflicted impediments to a viable, prosperous, and sustainable future for Maine and ALL its residents, from the very youngest to the very oldest.

But as I said before, “you get what you pay for” with consultants and their ilk, and those who spend OPM to employ them.

Technorati Tags: Maine,USA Today,population decline,economic decline

Are you kidding me?

Who was it that said “you’re entitled to your own opinion, but you’re not entitled to your own facts?”  I believe it may have been Senator Patrick Moynihan of New York many years ago.

Our policy here at Side has been to refrain from making this a shamelessly partisan site.  We’ve mentioned candidates here and there, but have generally not used our platform as a megaphone to advocate for one candidate or another.  We prefer instead to make readers aware of facts that bear on the choices on their ballots.

Sometimes we come across something elsewhere that cannot go without comment, and this happened the other day.  You may not have seen the subject letter to the editor in The Ostrich,  but we simply cannot let it pass without comment.  This passage is the one that got our knapsacks all wrapped around our bicycle cranks:

You can be sure that on Election Day, members of the tea party will be out in full force for their candidate, Paul LePage. A vote for Libby Mitchell will ensure that Maine will continue to grow and maintain its quality of life.

Let’s set aside the fact that the writer couldn’t identify “the tea party” if she tried, because it’s not an organization; it’s an attitude.  Instead, let’s look at these points of hers;

1) “ensure that Maine will continue to grow:”  What has the writer been smoking?

We have businesses closing, school enrollment down nearly 20%, and declining by 3% a year as far as the eye can see.  Youth are leaving, and those remaining are aging.  Signs of “growth” are missing in action, unless she is referring to enrollment in public assistance programs like food stamps and Medicaid, in which Maine leads the nation.

2) “maintain its quality of life.”  Does the writer know what ‘maintain’ means?  As in steady as she goes…maintain your speed, etc.

What is it she wants to maintain?  Is it our aging?  Our highest electricity rates in the nation? Our high tax burden?  Our needlessly high health insurance rates?

Or would it be our business vacancy rates?  And our very low average incomes?  How about our last place business outlook?

Or the growth in dependency among our population?  The highest % on food stamps and Medicaid in the nation?

Maybe it’s the departure of our youth for other opportunities she wants to ‘maintain.’

Does the writer really believe that Libby’s 32 years as a leader in the majority monopoly has had nothing to do with this?  Does she really believe that Mitchell plans to reverse everything she enacted over the last three decades?

And now a question for you, dear reader.  Is there any doubt why Maine is in a hole, and keeps digging it deeper?

Technorati Tags: Moonbats,Mitchell,Ostrich,voting,koolaid

More Damned Cows: A victory for the Base!!!

Drum roll please, maestro, to introduce the next offering in the now infamous Side series on cows.

Gerzofsky Cows

You don’t have any cows, but you do keep four noisy hogs.  You become concerned when you notice the rising popularity of cows, but aren’t about to give up your hogs.

You decide to take advantage of the growing interest in the cow business.  You don a big Stetson and some western boots, call a press conference at the Augusta Airport, and announce that four and twenty cows have “signed on the dotted line” to do their business on the Brunswick Naval Air Station.  You cite your 25 years as a cow owner and manager in Vermont as crucial to the deal, pointing out that you still keep your hand on the business.  “I know how cows think, and I convinced them that refusing this offer would be an udder mistake.”

You report their milk will be turned into composites for aviation, and their poop burned for “clean energy.”  You propose to capture their methane and convert it to LMG (liquid methane gas) for fueling barbecue grills while reducing carbon hoofprint.  “Downwind Energy has signed on the dotted line to establish a new company that could employ hundreds of unemployed cows if permits and financing can be worked out,” you assert.

You declare this a groundbreaking achievement in a new high tech lacto-manure cluster to be headquartered on the base.  You note the public clamor for jobs, and submit a bill to milk the public for $10 million in ‘vital investment’ funding.

You fall asleep counting cows, and dream of making a fortune selling “Stan and Johny’s” ice cream some day. 

Repeated attempts to gain confirmation of the cow’s signing from the MRRA result in dead silence, and not a single moo is heard from Elsie, head of the Maine Association of Milk Cows, when contacted in Augusta.  Downwind Energy could not be located, and MRRA declined to provide any information, citing advice from attorneys.

Soon, area residents become concerned about the lack of cow sightings on the base, but note the pungent smell of manure hanging over the region in a heavy fog.  Charges of “big hat, no cows” are levied against you.  Bumper Stickers saying “Bravo Sierra in Brunswick” pop up on the cars of retired Naval personnel in the area.

Rumors spread that noted attorney F. Lee Bailey will be coming on board to rescue the operation, demanding that strict protocols be observed in any future discussions.  Town councilors are strangely silent on the news.

In a related story, Governor Baldacci and Democrat leadership appeared before TV cameras in the Hall of Flags this morning to announce that MisFortune magazine has just ranked Maine 1st among the 50 states in the production of un-composted manure.  The editors cited Maine’s consistent manure surplus over the past 35 years as the primary contributor to the high ranking.

Details at 11.

Technorati Tags: cows,Gerzofsky,Maine,manure

Milking the Oldies but Goodies files….

Remember those old yarns that begin with “you have two cows, and….?”

Yesterday we ran across some versions of the story we wrote in 2003, so you’ll pardon their “age” if it shows a bit. They still brought a chuckle to staff here at Side offices, so we decided to pass them along as fodder for the current election discourse.

Bowdoin College Cows

Four cows are seen wandering in Brunswick.  They start to cross Maine Street on their way to the Bowdoin Campus.  Two survive, but two become crow cuisine at the road kill cafe when they're hit by an '83 Volvo with a "Free Mumia" bumper sticker.

The two dead cows inspire an activist movement that holds daily peace walks on the very spot the two were killed.  Two of the activists take a digital picture of the dead cows to the Town Clerk, who registers the two cows with a "D" since they are clearly residents of Maine Street.  The activists propose a national "U day", and write a play called the "Udder Monologues" to dramatize the pervasive abuse of cows in our society.

Of the two survivors who make it to the other side, the first is declared a member of an under-represented species on campus by the administration, and is appointed Chair/and first enrollee in a new Bovine Studies program. The other survivor is immediately appointed Special Director of Outreach for Bovine Studies Fund Raising.

The administration announces they are searching for candidates for a new position: "Special Assistant to the President for Zoological Diversity.”

Baldacci Cows

You ran for governor successfully.  You campaigned by going to county fairs and serving free spaghetti and meatballs.  Two cows, one young and one old, broke free from their stalls and stopped by for a free lunch. 

You promised the cows free hay, free bedding, and free veterinary care if they'd just follow you home.  You told them they won't have to give any more milk than they've given in the past.

One year after your inauguration, the younger cow bolts after being milked 24 hours a day.  She joins the cow stampede to New Hampshire, and is replaced by two out of state cows suffering from chronic udder collapse.

The older cow, after contracting severe udder chafe from being over-milked, dies while waiting for an appointment to see the state vet.  You continue to milk her for another 6 months, until her teats plug up when her teeth are sucked into her udder by the vacuum.

While planning for your re-election, you notice there don't seem to be enough young, healthy cows around anymore to run a dairy. 

Ralph Nader Cows

You're out in the wilds campaigning, and you come across a pasture where two cows are debating politics.  You ask to join the debate, but the cows deny you. 

Angered, you tell the cows they're too big for the pasture, and they're consuming an unfair share of the available food supply.  You call the situation unsustainable.

The cows, well-meaning but not particularly bright, agree with you, and agree to live on a combination of half the grass they had been consuming and half their own manure.  You declare this sustainable dairy eco-culture and write a book on the subject. 

A tall college professor and a drunken radio announcer hear about this, declare you brilliant, and join your movement.

Six months later, the cows are suffering from hardening of their teats because you practiced rotating single teat milking, eschewing "clear-milking" practices.  The dairy business collapses, and the state is plagued with huge stockpiles of manure. 

You blame the failure on corporate accounting practices and decide to use the manure to fertilize your hemp fields.

Technorati Tags: cows,Bowdoin College,Nader,Baldacci

The Ostrich: Willfully Uninforming Again….

It’s Friday night, more or less wind down time at Side editorial offices, but before we shut down, we’re going to indulge our penchant for pettiness for a moment or two.  Be petty with us, if you have the time.

Readers who have been with us from our inception know that The Ostrich, or as we sometimes call it, the Newspaper of the Willfully Uninformed (NOTWIUN), bears most of the responsibility for the birth of this “blog.”  Blessing or curse, take your pick.  It doesn’t change the circumstances that drove us to the extreme act of establishing our own “voice.”

Specifically, about 18 months ago, Ostrich editors challenged the validity of the information we presented on the Oxford Aviation proposal for BNAS occupancy.  We responded with copious documentation and references for our assertions, and the editors relented and published our submissions.

But the damage had been done, and whatever trust existed was gone.  We had spent years reading clearly erroneous and deceptive items on Ostrich op-ed pages, yet the powers to be decided that our submissions needed to be held to a higher standard.  We tired of the duplicitous editorial policy, and established this nationally recognized outlet in response.

Last night’s edition of The Ostrich provided two perfect examples of the double standard they apply to editorial submissions.  If your views comply with the inclinations of the editors, no problem.  If not, why should they give you public airing?

Example first: a reader letter asserting that welfare spending in Maine “amounts to approximately 1 percent of the general fund budget.”  In the current budget year, that latter figure is about $2.9 billion, so she wants us to believe that welfare spending in Maine is less than $30 million per year.  That’s right, less than THIRTY million per year.

And yet no one on The Ostrich staff thought this clearly bizarre claim worthy of challenge?  Are they serious?  How many times have we heard Stan Gerzofsky and the other boosters of the status quo nanny state claim that 85% of the general fund budget goes to education and human services?

Allowing this patently false discourse to run on their pages suggests either that the Editors will print anything, no matter how totally wrong it may be, or that they will print anything that comports with their ideology.

Moving along, let’s look at the latest silliness from Doug Rooks (rhymes with kooks), a “featured columnist” of The Ostrich.

Dougy argues that welfare isn’t welfare.  And as evidence, he cites the following:

MaineCare pays doctors and hospitals. No one receives cash, and it doesn’t even supplement personal buying power, as food stamps do. It makes as much sense to call Medicaid “public assistance” — with the implication of handouts — as for Medicare, which covers nearly as many people. Is it “public assistance” if you’re poor, but not if you’re old?

This position is so misinformed and so idiotic on so many levels that we don’t know where to begin, except to say that the zealots of the welfare state want us to believe that the tooth fairy is real and that money grows on trees.

The most egregious transgression here is to equate Medicaid with Medicare.

Medicaid, in case you didn’t know, is state provided health care, with the assistance of federal funds, and it doesn’t require that you contribute ahead of time or buy a product.  It is specifically designed for those whose incomes fall below certain qualifying levels.  You are a family of so many, with income below a set figure, and you get free health care.

Medicare, created in the 1960’s, is a contributory program very similar to Social Security.  You are legally compelled to contribute to the program as a tax on your earnings. 

You and your employer, at the point of a gun, must submit a mandated amount of your earnings to the Government to fund the program.  This is not a means based entitlement program.  It is a mandatory participation program.

The effect of its enactment in our world was for our employer, who previously provided health care coverage to retirees for life, to end that coverage at age 65, because you became eligible for government provided Medicare at that age.

In other words, you have no choice but to participate in the program (unless you were a government employee, exempted from the program), and the privately provided coverage programs immediately changed their structure because of the federal program.

Medicare’s structural definition couldn’t be more different that that of Medicaid.  Those who believe that because both start with the letter M and are government programs, they are equivalent, as Rooks argues, make it clear that we are about to go bankrupt as a society and a nation because the concept of critical thinking has gone extinct. 

Especially on the opinion pages of the so-called government watchdog media outlets.  Let us be blunt: Rooks is an idiot.

Sad to say, as we see it here in the offices, we’d be better off without ‘watchdogs’ like The Ostrich.  We need information, not mis-information.

Technorati Tags: Ostrich,welfare state,watchdogs,the press

Facts, State Spending, and Campaigning

An article in today’s Ostrich, front page, above the fold, includes this passage from a story covering last night’s debate:

Democrat Libby Mitchell countered continuing criticism by Republican Paul LePage that state government has grown fat and bloated. Mitchell, the state Senate president, said spending is at 2004 levels, and several agencies have been consolidated. 

(Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2010/10/18/politics/p173652D25.DTL&type=politics#ixzz12qMjtjTU)

What was that quote we posted the other day???….oh yeah…this one:

As scarce as truth is, the supply always seems to exceed the demand.

Let’s take a look at the facts pertaining to this claim.  We refer you to this item, which summarizes state spending from fiscal year 1996 to the current FY 2010.

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

Print it out, stare at it, and keep it handy.  Look at it over and over.  Especially the right hand column labeled “total expenditures.”  You’ll note that total state spending (expenditures) has increased EVERY year.  They were $6.15 billion in 2004, and have risen to $7.7 billion in the past fiscal year.

Mitchell’s assertion is indicative of the propaganda game that has been played in Augusta for years.  We will be writing more about this in the coming days.

The strategy to hide spending growth includes two fundamental concepts:

1) Talk only about “general fund” spending, which amounts to less than half of total state spending.

2) Use inflated projections for future spending levels, so that when budget deliberations begin, the news is always that severe cuts are being made, when in fact, in almost every case, what is happening is a lowering of the increases in spending.

If you look at the general fund numbers in the last two years, yes, there have been actual reductions, for the first time in recent memory.  Why?  Precipitous decline in general fund revenues because of the 50th ranked business environment in the nation, and a constitutional obligation to balance the budget.

In other words, the entrenched ruling class, even with their overwhelming majority, really didn’t have much choice.

But you’ll also notice that the figures waved around in recent months of “$800 million in very painful cuts”  followed by the need for “another disastrous $400 million in cuts to vital services” don’t seem to be supported by the spending totals posted by the State’s own accounting office.

Simply put, we are fooled, deceived, and willfully uninformed by those who claim to be our public servants, and the watchdogs who claim they act on our behalf.  Instead, they put their energies and influence into protecting the status quo.

To repeat, we will be writing about this more in the coming days.  For tonight, we end by recycling a relevant item published a bit more than 5 years ago.  It illustrates the case made in the foregoing, and we hope you grasp the fundamentals. 

Sadly, nothing has changed since we first wrote it; in fact, it may be even more relevant than it was in 2005.

Herewith, the Gully Bull Story:

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

To the editor:

We just returned from Complacency, a one horse town in Maine’s nowhere. Complacency prides itself on its “what, me worry?” community spirit.

To get there, you have to go to Ignorance first, because you can’t get to Complacency from here. We traveled there to see our old friend Gulliver Bull, known to everybody in town as “Gully.” He and his wife Amiyah were doing well, and before long, they suggested we go out for a bite.

So we headed to Chubby Girl, a classic drive-in with wicked good hamburgers, frappes, and fries.

As we pulled into a front row slot, we noticed signs proclaiming “new lower prices!” I asked Gully to explain, and his response was a bit confusing. He said the Chubby burger was $2.25 last year, but that now it costs $2.75.

“What?” I asked. “How can they claim ‘new lower prices’?” Gully replied that before Chubby Girl opened in March, they ran an ad saying the Chubby burger would be $3.00 this year. They got so much sass from anxious locals, that they rolled back the increase to $2.75, and ran another ad talking up their “new lower prices.” “That settled folks down, and life got back to normal in Complacency,” Amiyah added.

“You mean nobody took them to task for raising their prices higher than last year, and then claiming they were lower,” I asked? Gully said, “well, our state representative, Howie Cheatham, went down to chat with Chubby Girl’s owner. She told Howie she’d stop claiming new lower prices when he stops claiming the state reduces spending when the budget increases.”

“That was all it took for Rep. Cheatham to leave without a whimper, and we haven’t seen much of Howie since.”

So the “new lower prices” signs are still up. And folks in Complacency, grateful for the lower prices, are chowing down on Chubby burgers at a record pace.

I wish we could have spent more time with Gully Bull and the worry-free folks of Complacency. But as Amiyah Bull reminded us, sometimes visiting Complacency too long can be bad for you.

Technorati Tags: campaigns,state spending,budgets,Maine

Post Script on School Enrollment

A few days ago Side posted an update on Brunswick’s School Enrollment in this item:

http://othersideofbrunswick.blogspot.com/2010/10/quick-update-brunswick-school.html

Appropos of the subject, this quote appeared in last night’s Ostrich:

Occupancy rates at the complexes differ, Schott said Friday, “with some very high and some very low,” but he said that is by design. Minus the 56 Topsham units that will be demolished, just fewer than 40 percent of the remaining 646 rentable units are occupied, he said, “which is pretty good.”

This reporter travels by the McKeen Street Navy Housing complex on a regular basis.  There are about 230 units in this development.

While a few more places are starting to look occupied, the general impression is that people have not been flooding into the available housing.

When we posted the other day, the assumption in the back of our mind was that we are 200 students below the consultants’ bottom number for this school year, at least in part, because the Navy housing was not being occupied by new families moving in.

But that assumption is apparently way off base; 40% of the rentable units are occupied! 

From where we sit, that makes the 200 student shortfall even more worrisome, because the enrollment total already includes the students in a goodly portion of the “rentable units.”

Our guess here, based on this, is that the numbers will continue to come in far below the worst case estimates of the consultants in their 2007 report.

Once again, we’re not charging for this analysis, but as we said the other day, “you get what you pay for” with consultants.

How’s that for clear ambiguity?  We’re actually pretty proud of it, in a humble sort of way.

Technorati Tags: Brunswick,schools,enrollment,Maine

Thoughts for the day….

An easy out, to give you something to think on.

As scarce as truth is, the supply always seems to exceed the demand.

 

Winston Churchill complained, "Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened."

Technorati Tags: truth,quotes,Churchill

The Strange, Strange Case of Senator Stan Gerzofsky

He’s a helluva guy to figure out, track down, and keep up with, but Side will keep trying.

Brunswick’s own Stan Gerzofsky is the incumbent Senator in State District 10, and now finishing his tenth consecutive year in Maine’s Legislature. He is gregarious, full of surprises, and known as a man of some humility, integrity, and sincerity.

Stan’s proud of his humility; we remember him telling us how much more he knows than we do.  And he’s sincere, whether he means it or not; more than once he’s told us how highly he thinks of us.

Stan’s major accomplishments and varied life experiences go far beyond what lesser men could accomplish in his modest years.  As we’ve studied his resume, it almost seems like there’d have to be two of him to squeeze in all these achievements!

Let’s take a look.  To begin with, Stan is just a few months short of 66, a young man by today’s standards, and was born in New York City (https://www.votesmart.org/bio.php?can_id=36712).  So now we know where that irresistible feisty streak of his comes from!

He first ran for the legislature 10 years ago, at age 55, and we recall reading that he was a “retired furniture manufacturer” then.

Stan notes that he “made a good living” as a furniture maker for 38 years (http://www.theforecaster.net/content/nm-housedist10-093010).  So he began in that business at the early age of 17, or roughly 1961.  At the Chamber debate held in September, Stan said he “managed or owned the company for 25 of the 38 years.'”  Very impressive, you must admit.

We’ve asked Stan more than once where the furniture company is/was located, and what its name is/was.  Busy campaigning, he’s yet to respond.  There is, however, a report from a candidates’ event in Freeport this week, that Stan said the furniture business was in a small town in Vermont.

On the basis of that information, we deduce that Stan lived in Vermont from age 17 to 55, returning to Maine just in time for his first run for the house.  That would make him a Vermont resident from 1961 to 1999, give or take a few months either way.