Tuesday is? You guessed it, garbage day.

Just a note to a commentator, or an attempted commentator to yesterday's piece.  Unfortunately, I hit the delete button instead of publish.  My apologies.  I really have to stop trying to moderate over my smartphone.  Not blaming it on the phone by the way, just declining eyesight and the inability to get my finger to hit the correct spot on the screen.

As far as today's piece, as you know or should know, we have a Special Town Meeting scheduled for February 12, 2014.  The deadline to submit articles is January 9th.

One of my favorite little exercises is to try and guess the over/under for how many articles get inserted into the warrant which are submitted after the deadline.  Someone always has a brilliant last minute idea, or "just finds out" the day prior to submitting the warrant to the publisher, or just feels they are that important ( and apparently must be because they get it on the warrant) that deadlines are for the rest of the world.

Anyway, it has been as bad recently as it has in the past.  It can cause a whole lot of problems.  sometimes the reasoning is surreal for allowing the article.  Then again we seem to be a town that just can't say no, at least can't say no often enough.

So any guesses?  Believe it or not my line would be 1/2.  I know you can't have 1/2 an article, even though some seemed to be thought up by 1/2 a brain.  But if you are putting out a line you have to make it so people will "bet".  If it were 1, well might not get any action  on the over.  One and 1/2 would probably be too risky as I am sure there would be heavy betting on the under.  

Anyway, the line is set at 1/2.  I am betting the under.  No other reason than I tend to bet with my heart, and since this is a little line, well zero seems appropriate for a bet with my heart.

Changing gears ... 

I went to the selectmen's meeting last night.  The agenda was pretty light, but when the board went into executive session to later reconvene to open session, I left.  Didn't bother to wait by the television for the open session to reconvene either.

So if you happened to see the reconvened part, and heard anything good, let me know.

I did happen to catch the mention about an appraisal for land.  I heard the figure of $75,000.00.  Unless we are about to witness the altruistic acts of an individual, not sure that is going to be realistic.  We will see though.  What the heck, it is only money right?

Where do we go next?  

Oh yeah, back to the Special Town Meeting.  A point to keep in mind is preliminary FY 2015 plans have allocated a sum of $200,000 to be spent at the upcoming February 2014 meeting and the annual STM within the Annual Town Meeting.  This is $200,000.00 general fund money.

As in, it is okay to spend a whole pile of money on something special, because it is not being paid for by the general fund.  Don't worry about the fact you could use it to help offset costs that are in fact paid for by the general fund.  Right now it isn't costing the general fund any money.  Why worry about five years from now when it will?

That general fund money.  

Can't tell you whether that will be enough or not, because I don't know every article that is going on in February and certainly not in May.  Should it be enough, yes.  Might be tight.  That assumes you want to spend it and further assumes you should spend it.  But we will deal with that when the cards are actually dealt.

People on the municipal level, and I don't just mean employees, I mean the general public also, tend to forget that spending one time money in the first instance means it ain't there in the next.  But hey let's face it, there is a certain appeal to STMs. It is kind of like digging into your pocket and finding a $20 bill you didn't realize you had.  After all what is 20 bucks in the relative scheme of things?

It is going to be an interesting winter and spring folks, if nothing else.

And for today, there is nothing else.

Be Safe!