Double Trouble: The Ostrich digs a deeper hole

Maine Papers Hit With More Circulation Losses

Let’s briefly recap past items on this subject.  In May of this year, we reported in this post as follows:

The Times Record in Brunswick was no exception to the trend. It went from a daily circulation of 8,673 a year ago to 8,091 now, a loss of 6.7 percent. The weekend edition dipped from 10,366 in 2009 to 9,583 in 2010, down more than 7.5 percent.

Now we come across a recent update (Mon, 11/08/2010) from Al Diamon, noted Maine curmudgeon, on the same subject.

Another round of down: The statistics for the six months ending September 30, 2010, range from poor showings – the Times Record in Brunswick saw daily and weekend circulation both drop by 5.3 percent from a the same period a year ago – to seemingly disastrous ones – the Maine Sunday Telegram was off by 10.8 percent, while the Portland Press Herald suffered a 9.9 percent loss.

It’s no secret that “traditional media,” both print and electronic, are suffering major declines in circulation and viewership.  In Brunswick, the loss of a large population segment (BNAS families) is a contributing factor. 

The fact remains that media dinosaurs are, like defeated Democrat incumbents in the recent election, convinced they have a birthright to a powerful and prosperous position in society, and they are slow to see the writing on the wall.  Especially in the town of Perfect, otherwise known as Brunswick, where Bowdoin students frolic, and retired big city lawyers and bureaucrats parade in their feathered finery at art walks and poetry slams.

We’ve seen some evidence of late that papers like the Lewiston Sun Journal and the Portland Press Herald realize they can’t survive by appealing to a rabid 1/3 of the population while ignoring the rest, and they’re beginning to moderate their editorial policies. 

Expecting The Ostrich to follow suit is folly. They love Krugman and the other Kool-aid gurus from the NY Times, and the house editors are as true blue as they come.  They’ll keep on serving us Doug Rooks and the rest as they plod their way to the dung-heap of failed media.

Unless their tax problems do them in first.  And we have new information to report on this subject,  but before we do, let’s refer to our prior reports.

Ostrich Tax Delinquencies

Here are the links in case you want to refresh your memory, or for new readers, get the goods for the first time:

First, the original report:

http://othersideofbrunswick.blogspot.com/2010/09/ostrich-not-looking-too-good-taxwise.html

Then we updated the story with this item:

http://othersideofbrunswick.blogspot.com/2010/10/update-ostrich-property-taxes.html

It’s really tough to believe those reports are not much more than a month or two old.  How time flies.  Especially when we’re having fun.

To bring you current, we provide these updates, all based on publicly available information.

Brunswick Publishing still owes a portion of their 2009-10 personal property taxes.  That amount is $18,085.40.  The town has placed a lien against their personal property for the 2009-10 tax balance.  They owe all of their 2010-11 personal property taxes.  That amount now stands at $42,243.39.

As for real estate taxes, Brunswick Publishing did not make the October payment of their 2010-11 taxes, which, including interest was $37,230.76.  They will owe an additional $37,081.42 in April 2011. 

These are the amounts billed to Brunswick Publishing. 

There are also taxes assessed to Alliance Press, and they are delinquent for 2009 and 2010 personal property taxes, in amounts with interest of $6,365.71 and $5,550.82 respectively.

Without getting out Side’s calculator, it looks like The Ostrich enterprise owes our beloved town $100,000 plus in taxes.  And that’s without considering upcoming payments that would add further to the total amount in arrears.

But hey, they’re leading advocates for social and economic justice and fair share taxation, so we’re confident they’ll cough up the amounts owed soon,and accompany them with written testimony that confirms their undying commitment to shared responsibility for the common good.

We’ll publish it here when they do.  Lord knows we can all use the inspiration.

Technorati Tags: Ostrich,Brunswick,taxes

Ostrich feathers for your cap….

Given circulation trends, we’re pretty sure most of you don’t actually read The Ostrich.  For those few who do, we suspect you give it no more than 10-15 minutes of your busy day; you wonder what happened to objective and determined reporting, you grumble about their op-ed content, and then you toss it in the recycle heap like so much compost fodder. 

You try to forget about the waste of your time and money, and turn your attention to things that actually matter in your life.  You quickly forget about the few drops of water that landed on your head.

You’ve barely gotten your toes wet, we’re here to tell you.  We’ve been out of town recently, and a week or so ago, this correspondent sat down and consumed 5 days of Ostrich news and opinion offerings, on line, in a single sitting. If you’re generous, you could call it a ‘full immersion’ experience.

But Side is a realist, and instead, we’ll call it ‘full submersion.’  We were left gasping for breath after repeatedly having the oxygen of common sense and reality snatched from our airways.

The examples are too numerous to describe in full, so we’ll give you some of the lowlights.

‘Right to work’…or freeload?

Like the good little leftists they are, The Ostrich parroted the talking points given to them by union poobahs.

Imagine if our towns and cities operated under the same principle: Enjoy the benefits of public schools, police, fire protection, etc., but you don’t have to pay taxes if you don’t feel like it.

How ironic, given The Ostrich’s status as a tax delinquent; could they possibly be any more tone deaf?  They act the scold, as they often do, but somehow can’t face what they see in the mirror, if they would just look in it.

No matter, and no shame shown; Ostrich editors have ready claims that closed shop states fare better in the important things, even if they don’t cite their sources:

By every “quality of life” measure — health care, pensions, job creation, infant mortality — right-to-work states fare worse.

While we’re confident that short list doesn’t enumerate every quality of life measure, we’re also pretty sure right to work states have more flat tires, tougher pancakes, and more abrasive toilet-tissue.  And more sickly looking lawns, and rhodies that don’t bloom to their fullest potential. 

We wonder, however, how newspaper circulation trends look in right-to-work states.  And whether they have better lobster and small batch artisanal vodka.

We wonder as well what The Ostrich thinks about turnpike tolls, where only those who use it and benefit from it pay the tolls?  What does this say about the fairness of funding for government schools, libraries, and pay per bag trash collection? 

If K-12 should be paid for by everyone, whether they have students in the schools or not, why shouldn’t college and graduate school be?  Why shouldn’t all college be free?  And why shouldn’t all food, shelter, clothing, and transportation be free?

Oh, and there’s one other relevant point here.  It’s widely known that something like 80% of union dues is used by union officials to fund campaigns of those who pander to them.  In New Jersey, the teachers’ union collects $100 million in dues annually.  How much of that do you think is used to fund “collective bargaining” and other administrative activities of the union?

We’ll wait with bated breath for Ostrich editors to answer that, and to explain to us how much of our taxes are used to fund campaigns for those favored by the collectors of said taxes.  On the other hand, maybe the distinction has never occurred to them.

Fairness and social justice are wondrous concepts, aren’t they?  Especially when employed by the editors as they seek to form the attitudes of the little people who look to them for guidance.

We here at Side are hoping that The Ostrich will see the fairness and social justice in paying their taxes like the rest of us do.  On time, for a change.

Blogging immortality slips right through our fingers….The Ostrich gets away

And we have no one to blame but ourselves.  As we said in our most recent, yet long ago post, summer laziness was overtaking us in matters of editorial output, and in this case, it slapped us hard across our ample tukkis and denied us a chance for fame and fortune in our chosen pursuit.

The narrative below explains exactly what we mean; let the weeping begin.

The Ostrich puts its head in the Sand(ers)

A few days after returning from our trip, we went off to pre-pay our heating oil plan for the coming year.  This brought to mind the fiasco at Thibeault Energy in the past year, in which, as best we know, many customers lost most or all of their account credit balance at the time the company failed.  Not a pretty picture.

This is the risk of prepaying, which is how subscribing to The Ostrich works.  We had been in the habit of prepaying a year’s subscription, until a few months back when we decided we would not renew until the publication paid up on its delinquent property taxes.

Which means we have no financial exposure should the Ostrich suddenly go belly up, like Thibeault did.  Those of you staring at an invoice to renew your subscription might want to think twice before handing over more than a few weeks advance payment.  That way, you’re only wagering the bare minimum of cash that they can deliver.  Having lived for months without the paper, we can assure you that after a few days, you’ll discover that life goes on just fine.

A day or so after signing up for our oil, a friend asked why we hadn’t commented on the then recent item in which Ostrich editors endorsed the pronouncements of Senator Bernie Sanders, an admitted socialist in the US Congress.

Hypocrisy and sanctimony, thy name is Ostrich, and this item is a shining case study to make the point.  This tax delinquent media outlet preaches to us, the little people, about taxes.  Which leads to a conclusion that we might well be better off with no newspaper if the only choice is one with no editorial integrity (see previous posts) and a condescending attitude towards its readers.  As a reminder, our second nickname for the Ostrich is the NOTWIUN – newspaper of the willfully uninformed.

The Sanders item is loaded with the class warfare rhetoric of big government collectivists - those who believe that government should have no limits, and that its primary role is to redistribute income, and in the process, choose winners and losers, with all the well-known dangers that creates.  In doing so, the attitude formation industry, of which print media is part, joins in the slime-pit that is big government politics.

“Working people/families” are the heroes of the op-ed, and “wealthiest Americans” are the villains.  And with a 25% increase in federal spending in the last two years, the editors swallow Sanders demagoguery that considers any cuts against this baseline as cruel and inhuman, and certain to result in bodies in the street.

Working people/families is the euphemism usually applied to union members and government employees.  I don’t know about you, but we spent 38 years working, and we were neither.  And we don’t believe that the choices before us “largely line up against the interests of working families.”  In fact, we consider that driving our country jobless and bankrupt does just that.

We also believe the first law of economics cannot be repealed: resources are limited, and there are competing demands for access to them.  In other words, we don’t have unlimited resources, and we can never have enough to satisfy everyone’s demand for fairness.

As for those villainous wealthy Americans, they already carry the lions’ share of the tax burden in this country, to the point where half the population pays little or no income taxes.  Is that fair?

There we go, getting ready to jump off the rant cliff, and we had no intention of doing so, so we’ll cease the distraction here.

And move on to the editors’ closing sentiment (emphasis ours):

Sen. Sanders is exactly right: This is a “pivotal moment” in our country’s history. What’s required is a true “shared sacrifice” — one that includes the wealthiest Americans and most profitable corporations.

It’s what working families need and want.

That pretty much captures the overall theme of the editorial.  And It had been my intention from my first thinking on this post that I would close it with this passage:

“So The Ostrich wants us to make a ‘shared sacrifice?’  Here’s an idea: how about if they make their point by sacrificing an editor or two, and share the funds saved with the town by paying off their delinquent property tax bills?  It’s what Brunswick’s working and property tax paying families need and want.”

And now, the missed opportunity angle.  If we had completed this post, with the closing statement above, and published it say, no later than mid-last week, we would have set ourselves to look prescient at the very least, or influential, if we wanted to delude ourselves even further.  And in the process, scored a very large scoop for the uncompensated blogging community.

Why?  Well in case you didn’t already know, we’ll tell you why.  While in town yesterday, we ran across a discarded copy of Friday’s Ostrich, and what to our wondering eyes should appear, but a lead op-ed titled “Gone fishin’.”  In the item, Jim McCarthy, once managing editor, and more recently, opinion editor, says his farewells to readers, because ‘it’s time for me to do something different,’ and ironically, we couldn’t agree more.  We found this explanation to be, well, a bit ambiguous to say the least.

Said former editor is the primary reason this blog was created, and as readers know, we have had our share of run-ins with him.  While we are a charitable lot, it is our belief that the editorial policies of the Ostrich, particularly as expressed on the opinion page, have been a disservice to the community, and very likely a major contributing factor to the sharp decline in circulation figures.  So we’ll wish him well in future endeavors and leave it at that.

We have no idea whether this is simply a coincidental change in staff, or an indicator that fiscal matters continue to trend downward at The Ostrich, and we’ll soon see more indications of that.

Either way, it seems like a good reminder to minimize your subscription commitment to them, and a good reminder to us to get our collective publishing energies back on track.

And you can rest assured that your subscription remittals to us are safe; we’re not like all the others.

Technorati Tags: The Ostrich,blogging

Paging S. Donald Sussman-Pingree; please bring your checkbook!

Exactly two years ago, plus or minus a leap day, we posted the now classic item appended at the end of THIS post.  It  was early in the history of this media outlet, and we had to find our amusement where we could. 

In view of current events, we thought you might want to refresh yourself on this watershed item from our on-line archives.  (BTW, the Ostrich on-line archives span all of two weeks; ours span our entire existence.)

As loyal readers know, we have frequently reported on the inability of The Ostrich to pay its fair share in property taxes on a timely basis like the rest of us do.  And we’ve juxtaposed it with their editorial predilection for telling local taxpayers to stop the whining and pay whatever it takes in increased taxes to ‘support the community and promote our school excellence.’

As it turns out, the tax delinquencies of said Ostrich have now risen to a higher degree of public visibility.  We have friends to thank for tipping us to the latest events, and as soon as we have T-Shirts made with The Other Side logo, they’ll get theirs free.

The public visibility to which we refer is rising to the level of an agenda item at the upcoming Town Council meeting on Monday, March 5th.   The agenda packet for the meeting can be found here: http://www.brunswickme.org/council/agendas/packets/2012Packets/packet030512.pdf

You’ll have to scroll through the document, but when you do, you’ll find a complete accounting of the amounts the publishing firm owes the town.  Even more enlightening, you’ll find a sequence of emails between town officials and the publisher, and they are, to say the least, both revealing and troubling.

You can judge for yourselves whether The Ostrich  has a viable future.  They are clearly in extremis.  We’ll just say we’re glad they don’t have a cash advance of $100 or so from us.  That would have been as good an investment as buying into Kestrel Aircraft Brunswick operations.

Lastly, we have to thank another friend for suggesting that perhaps the owners of The Ostrich should contact S. Donald Sussman-Pingree to plead for a cash bailout.

He’s apparently long on cash and highly motivated to invest in media outlets, though we can’t fathom why he would do so.

If you have any hunches on why he would, please let us know, and we’ll follow up.

 

Technorati Tags: Ostrich,Brunswick,taxes

 

Local newspaper adopts new name, image

According to unconfirmed reports, the owners & publishers of Brunswick’s daily newspaper have announced that the publication is putting a new face on the operation.  Determined to stem a precipitous circulation decline, the paper’s leadership has been searching for an identity that would breath new life into its pages, and be more consistent with its editorial policies, journalistic rigor, and the refined sensibilities of the region.

“We felt it was important to get the best ideas possible in this endeavor,” the paper’s owner allegedly said, “so we enlisted the help of the noted media consulting firm Bailey, Balderdash and Malarkey, who’ve recently been helping ABC News and the New York Times with their images.”

The locals were advised to connect with the character of the community, and Bowdoin College is clearly a cultural pillar of the town.  Impressed by the catchiness of the college newspaper’s name – ‘The Bowdoin Orient’ – the publisher asked the consultants to come up with something similarly appealing and symbolic, and after months of rigorous study, they struck pay dirt.

Henceforth, the broadsheet will be known as ‘The Brunswick Ostrich,’ and the masthead will read:

The Brunswick Ostrich

Serving the willfully uninformed since 1967

In keeping with the theme, the editorial board adopted the mascot shown below:

Editors claim to be excited about the new identity, and believe it will “tie all the loose ends together,” a willfully un-named source close to them said.  “Even the photographers feel a new sense of dedication,” the source said, “and to prove it, they offered this shot of the editors digging in to a crucial story,” presumably about the planned beach resort on the redeveloped Brunswick Naval Air Station.

Calls to Ostrich offices were not returned by post time, so this reporter cannot confirm or deny whether “feathers will be flying”  due to any possible staff realignments. 

And questions about whether the beach resort is simply a Potemkin Village do-over for Oxford Aviation and renowned barrister F. Lee Bailey will go unanswered.

Which, come to think of it, is just the way the editors have always liked things.

Local newspaper: “Ready, fire, aim”

Brunswick’s local newspaper, aka the Ostrich on Other Side, or more cryptically, the NOTWIUN (Newspaper Of The WIllfully UNinformed), has once again demonstrated its razor sharp editorial marksmanship.

A quick read of yesterday’s and today’s edition reveals a glaring lack of basic proofreading effort before committing to print, to the point where one wonders whether they have access to 21st century word processing software to check spelling, grammar, and text structure.  Or even 20th century versions.

But here at the non-profit offices of Other Side, we’re especially taken by yesterday’s piercingly analytical editorial attacking Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield’s ‘unconscionable’ rate hike request.

Citing the always reliable Joe Ditre of Consumers for Affordable Healthcare as their source. the editors parroted his claim that Anthem doesn’t “need any more increases in profits.”

Readers should not interpret what follows as support of or opposition to Anthem’s request; we simply want to point out the failure to count to 10 and conduct due diligence before publishing an editorial.

The proof of these increases in profits, according to the NOTWIUM, is this: ‘in Maine alone,’ Anthem made ‘$75 million in profits in 2007 and $51 million in profits in 2008.’  Wow!

Now we’re willing to believe that in the Ostrich’s parallel universe, calendar years count backwards instead of forwards, so in their minds, the year over year profit figures represent an ‘increase,’ as opposed to the decrease the rest of us might see. 

Local newspaper adopts new name, image

According to unconfirmed reports, the owners & publishers of Brunswick’s daily newspaper have announced that the publication is putting a new face on the operation.  Determined to stem a precipitous circulation decline, the paper’s leadership has been searching for an identity that would breath new life into its pages, and be more consistent with its editorial policies, journalistic rigor, and the refined sensibilities of the region.

“We felt it was important to get the best ideas possible in this endeavor,” the paper’s owner allegedly said, “so we enlisted the help of the noted media consulting firm Bailey, Balderdash and Malarkey, who’ve recently been helping ABC News and the New York Times with their images.”

The locals were advised to connect with the character of the community, and Bowdoin College is clearly a cultural pillar of the town.  Impressed by the catchiness of the college newspaper’s name – ‘The Bowdoin Orient’ – the publisher asked the consultants to come up with something similarly appealing and symbolic, and after months of rigorous study, they struck pay dirt.

Henceforth, the broadsheet will be known as ‘The Brunswick Ostrich,’ and the masthead will read:

The Brunswick Ostrich

Serving the willfully uninformed since 1967

In keeping with the theme, the editorial board adopted the mascot shown below:

               

Editors claim to be excited about the new identity, and believe it will “tie all the loose ends together,” a willfully un-named source close to them said.  “Even the photographers feel a new sense of dedication,” the source said, “and to prove it, they offered this shot of the editors digging in to a crucial story,” presumably about the planned beach resort on the redeveloped Brunswick Naval Air Station.

         

Calls to Ostrich offices were not returned by post time, so this reporter cannot confirm or deny whether “feathers will be flying”  due to any possible staff realignments. 

And questions about whether the beach resort is simply a Potemkin Village do-over for Oxford Aviation and renowned barrister F. Lee Bailey will go unanswered.

Which, come to think of it, is just the way the editors have always liked things.

Technorati Tags: Brunswick,press,Maine,Ostrich

“This and That” – May 1, 2010

A brief collection of items worthy of your awareness:

Traditional Media Circulation Continues To Slide

According to “media-mutt” Al Diamon, Maine’s established print media are continuing to lose circulation.  While the Press Herald and some others have declined to submit their recent figures, those that have show a consistent loss of readership (paid, at least.)

Brunswick’s revered Ostrich continued to demonstrate the wisdom of editorial policies that cater to less than half of their potential readership.

The Times Record in Brunswick was no exception to the trend. It went from a daily circulation of 8,673 a year ago to 8,091 now, a loss of 6.7 percent. The weekend edition dipped from 10,366 in 2009 to 9,583 in 2010, down more than 7.5 percent.

For the rest of the story, look here.

Public Sector Getting Rich on the Backs of the Middle Class

Got your attention there, didn’t I.  Regular readers know we’ve reported on the excesses of “public sector” unions before.  You may want to grab your ankles, or at least your knees, before you read further on this report though.

A periodical that we subscribe to recently carried an article that included this citation:

In Contra Costa, California, the final salary of one fire chief, 51, was $221,000. He was given an annual, guaranteed pension of $284,000. Another chief, 50, whose final salary was $185,000, got a pension of $241,000. Credit the Contra Costa Times with uncovering this.

You can read the entire article here.  And check out a referenced source here.

Too bad you didn’t take that job as a California fireman when you had the chance.  And 250 million Americans are thinking the same thing.

Coastal Journal – Government “Rescues the Economy”

Is your back hurting from bending over to absorb the last little snippet of good news?  Poor you; you better get used to it.

The Coastal Journal, which as we’ve opined before is the vehicle by which Editor Gina Hamilton earns a living while spewing collectivist and liberal orthodoxy, carried her “analysis” of the Obama administration’s plan for “Rescuing the economy” here.

I’ll spare you the gory details, other than to report that her review of the plans includes intentions to create a lovely array of new government agencies to oversee and improve our lives. The items below combine the “best ideas” of the house and senate versions of the bill.

Consumer Financial Protection Agency: Creates an independent agency with scope over financial products such as deposit accounts and loans.

Systemic Risk: Creates a new agency, called the Financial Services Oversight Council, which identifies threats to the stability of financial markets.

Investor Protection: Strengthens the SEC, and orders a study of the securities industry that will identify needed reforms.

Insurance: Creates a federal Insurance Office that will monitor all aspects of the insurance industry, including identifying gaps in regulation. (Or, if you prefer: Creates an Office of National Insurance in the Treasury Department to monitor insurance industry issues, coordinate international issues, and provide information and recommendations.)

Credit Rating Agencies: Creates the Office of Credit Ratings in the SEC.

Well!  I hope you feel better, because we certainly do.  How could we not when our aristocracy plans to create so many new agencies to look after our interests?  In all likelihood, the new government jobs will knock a tenth of a percent or two off the unemployment rate.  How could this not be good for us?

And now you know the Other Side of the story.

Technorati Tags: press,government,unions

“Reaching out” to The Ostrich..

As we related some weeks ago, The Ostrich declined to extend us credit on our subscription billing, which we had asked them to do as a quid pro quo for us, the taxpayers, extending them credit on their property tax accounts.

Well, actually, they didn’t ‘decline’ to do so; they just didn’t respond to our request at all, which we went out on a limb on and took as a decline.  We had hoped they would ‘be bigger than us,’ given their frequent pontifications about community, fairness, social justice, etc.

All for naught.  Which gave us a chance to demonstrate what we mean by being the ‘bigger’ party in such affairs.  And so we have.

Since the appearance of one of our columns on their pages would boost circulation, and thus provide revenue that could resolve their tax delinquencies, we reached out in a selfless act of charity.  We recently made a donation, and while delivery has not begun again, they did have the good sense to print our work.  One giant step for Side, one small step for The Ostrich.

We’re well aware that most of you don’t see The Ostrich, so in a further act of charity, we’ll posting our effort here, on pages you can afford to read, and more important, can’t afford not to read.

Testing the ‘chain of argument’ for budgets and school excellence

Published: Friday, May 27, 2011 3:13 PM EDT

School budget theatrics over the past several weeks bring this quote to mind from Carl Sagan: “If there’s a chain of argument, every link in the chain must work (including the premise) — not just most of them.”

Advocates of the proposed budget seem unfamiliar with such insight, thinking more with their hearts than their minds. Let’s examine their “chain of argument.”

Premise: “School excellence is important to the attractiveness and vitality of a community.” OK.

Asserted conclusion: “A necessary and sufficient gauge of school excellence is how much we spend on them, and how much we increase what we spend.”

Stop! The links to this conclusion don’t ‘work.’ No objective evidence was presented that spending equates to excellence. And there is plenty of evidence that other things, like teachers credentialed in their subjects and merit-based compensation do.

First link: “Brunswick’s schools are widely known as excellent; in fact, it’s one of the main reasons we moved here.”

Stop! This doesn’t work either.  No evidence was presented to support this claim, nor was any offered to prove that our teaching staff is excellent. In fact, a school board member stated that our high school is on the “failing schools list.”  Test scores over the years have been undistinguished. There is no tangible reason to believe Brunswick schools are more excellent than others except say-so and the pleadings of parents who have already placed their children in them, and who would be plagued with guilt and self-doubt if they said otherwise.

Second link: “Brunswick’s schools are ailing and at the brink of ‘utter decline’ because of ‘severe cuts’ in the budget; we’ve got to make it stop, or people won’t think well of us.”

Stop! Per-student spending has grown continually, increasing by more than 60 percent in the last seven years, and per-student property tax support has grown by about 50 percent in the last five years. In the new budget, property tax support of the schools increases by 6.3 percent, even though enrollment continues to decline. For those who moved here because of our excellent schools, when did they stop being excellent, and how could you tell?

Third link: “The best teacher we’ve ever met is being let go because of extreme cuts to the budget.”

Stop! This much-revered teacher is being let go not because of budget cuts, but because we have a union relationship that prizes seniority and high pay, while ignoring teacher competence and performance. We don’t prioritize excellence in our teaching staff on behalf of our children, and we don’t get rid of the deadwood when the time comes. We pay the worst teachers the same as the best. The loss of the “best teacher” is proof positive of a flawed accord that prioritizes union members over students. Enforced mediocrity is the result. ‘For the children?’ I don’t think so.

Fourth link: “Teachers are underpaid, and I would gladly pay them more; and I would gladly pay more in taxes.”

Stop! A year ago, I compared teacher pay to that of the top tier of town officials.  I found that in 2008-2009, 60 teachers (about one third) made more per week than the top five earners for the town: the police chief, the fire chief, the finance director, the town clerk and the public works director/town engineer. Teachers reach those pay levels without any basis in merit or performance; all that matters is years on the job. The teachers will likely get all of the $1 million in new property taxes, if not more. As to paying more in taxes: I can’t imagine any town official who would stop you from writing a check as large as you like to the town.

If you consider every act in this budget season, you begin to realize the School Department put on an elaborate piece of theater that might be called “Lamentations — The Musical,” in which they strummed the minds of the public and used the Town Council as an ensemble chorus.

They began with a 12-percent-plus increase over the current year budget, or more than $3 million higher than now proposed, ensuring that the opening acts would feature high drama, inspire great anguish and gnashing of teeth, and mobilize a sizable contingent of mothers, fathers, and children to plead with great emotion at public hearings. The plainly unreasonable opening total guaranteed everything that followed would be demagogued  as “deep and severe cuts.”

The final budget approved by the School Department made it through unscathed. The public was played to a fare-thee-well, as was the Town Council.  If they don’t realize it, perhaps it’s time to wonder whether any were uncredited script consultants in the stage production.

For these reasons and many more, I will vote “No” on the budget referendum, and I encourage you to make a stand and do the same. It’s time for reason to triumph over unfounded emotions.

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

Which proves, we suppose, as the schoolies are fond of saying, that ‘you get what you pay for.’

Technorati Tags: Brunswick,schools,budgets

The “News” in Brunswick is not good….

We’ve read in recent days of the demise of Thibeault Energy, a long established family business that we assumed was a rock solid operation, based on decades of serving the local population.  But poof, just like that, the owner has put on his it’s all overcoat.

And then Finest Hearth, from whom we bought our fireplace insert a few years back, announces they are ceasing operation.  Three stores, up in flames, so to speak.

We were out on the town today, running some errands, and what we saw was not encouraging.  The Bookland end of the Cooks Corner Mall is beginning to look more and more like a wasteland, with numerous units vacant, and the prime corner property, the former video store, wasting away as well.

Ironically, you exit the mall looking directly at a new Credit Union under construction.  Lord knows the town could use another credit union, on top of its surfeit of banks.  Don’t know how this works, but it seems strange that the money business is doing so well, but business can’t seem to make money.

On to Maine Street, the Duncan Donuts shop next to Rite-Aid is now gone, and the Wheelhouse Cafe next to Bamforth’s looks to have turned its coffee makers off for good.  There’s a cultural message in the passing of each, depending on your point of view.

OK, businesses come, and businesses go.  Hopefully, things balance out, and on the whole, more come than go.  We’ll see.

You may recall us reporting on the property tax status of The Ostrich over the past several months.  It turns out that the news on that page is no less depressing.  According to public records, the business entities of record, Alliance Press and Brunswick Publishing, have made no progress in resolving their tax delinquencies.

The latest public information shows they are in arrears by more than $100,000 in total  Given the overall decline in print media circulation, and the advertising shortfalls inevitable when businesses shut down, things can only be getting worse, not better.  And another major payment is due in a matter of weeks.

Funny how those most likely to call local activists “anti-tax zealots” are behind in their taxes.  Which is to say, not paying their “fair share.”

Stay tuned.  For now, Other Side is current in its tax accounts, but we may soon need to run some specials for full page ads if conditions persist.

And for the record, we’d be happy to see our competitor survive, if only for the competition they provide, if you want to call it that.

Technorati Tags: Brunswick,Ostrich,taxes,business

Other Side circulation and response booming!

From the beginning, Other Side has viewed itself as having something of a missionary mission in the field of journalism, reaching out to those who would not normally appreciate its world view. 

We never aimed to be a New York Times clone, or more to the point, echo the offerings of the Ostrich.  There’s enough lockstep posturing in the local media to satisfy the local demand for that and more.

So back up the Subarus and the Piouses and pay attention.

Simply put, we’ve been intent on conversions, on gentle and subtle cajoling and schmoozing of the questioning and the wandering, hoping to gain their allegiance to our view of things.  It’s obvious that this is a crap shoot.  One would think, though, that the more crap you shoot at, the more you’d hit.

And it seems to be true.  We’re pleased to announce that the “Double, double toil and trouble….” post is setting new records in readership.  We’re not sure why, given the irrelevance of the subject, but it has us thinking about a revenue generating model for our publication.  (There’s that pesky capitalism thing sneaking in again.)

The really exciting news is that metrics show we are, in fact, reaching the previously unreached.  There is hope after all.

To prove this, the “Double, double….” post has elicited 5 “idiotic” ratings against 2 “brilliant” ratings.  And the “Just thought you’d want to know..” post has drawn 3 for idiotic vs. 2 for brilliant.

Taken together, the totals are 8 for idiotic, and 4 for brilliant.

Proof enough, we believe, that we are reaching our target audience.  And the motivation derived from this response is impossible to quantify.

So we close with this commitment: we will do whatever we can to grab your attention and raise your consciousness. 

Or if you prefer, grab you by your hackles and raise your awareness.

And in closing, keep those idiotic ratings coming!  We appreciate the feedback.