Tuesday's This and That.

It is Tuesday morning and all ready it has the feeling it has been a long week. 

Oh well, one day at a time. Right?

There is an old adage that good facts tend to make bad law.  Seems too often facts of a specific incident or those surrounding isolated circumstances are used to justify what more often than not turns into an excessive knee jerk reaction.

Some promising news from the governor about Southcoast rail.  If it is up to him, it will be a reality.  The flip side, if it is up to him, it is going to be tied to a costly reality.

I am not stating that some of the increases in revenue he is proposing to ramp up overall transportation spending and improvements isn't warranted.  Indeed much of the proposal involves items that perhaps should have started being phased in years ago.  

What causes me concerns is state wide, the perception that the driving force behind these "revenue" increases will be the Southcoast rail, and because of that perception the attitude of forgetting the Southcoast may prevail.

We are going to find out just how much push our local delegation has in getting the governor's plan implemented.  Alternatively, we are going to be reminded about just how little push it has.

People will be looking at the costs of these proposals with a very critical eye.  they will be wondering just how much of the money actually will end up going to the proposed projects and infrastructure improvements, and how much will end up being diverted to other purposes as happens time and time again with specific revenue increases for specific purposes that turn out to be less than specific.

Want to give people a reason to at least be accepting of tax and fee increases?  Change the state constitution to mandate any increase targeted for specific purposes can be used only for the stated purpose.  

The S-T has an article with the comments from members of the local delegation, all talking about how the people will understand that the extra money is need to take care of these problems.  As one of the people who in fact understand there is a need for some extra money, you will forgive me if I am less that 100% confident that all the money proposed to be raised will be used for the purpose I am told it is being raised for.

Enough on this.  Unfortunately I have reached the point hat when I hear the train role into the station is when I will believe we get Southcoast rail.

Locally, nice traffic snarl yesterday afternoon on the bridge.  As I said before, with any luck, when they finish all these multiple projects along the same stretch of road, we will hopefully get at least five years of reprieve before they decide to do anything else.  

Roadwork.  Absolutely needed.  Absolutely little money to do it, or just about anything else within existing budgets.  Year in and year out Fin Com gets blamed for how little roadwork gets done in town.  Never mind the fact no one seems willing to get up and fight for an article on town meeting floor.  Bottom line, road work accounted for about 50% of the remaining funds appropriated outside of article 4 and raised on the general levy.  

I am all for spending more money on roadwork.  I just haven't figured out which department's budget gets decimated to do it with.

Culture shock - it is coming, one way or another.  The current executive secretary retires in 2015.  His replacement, be it a town manager or an executive secretary, isn't going to be the jack of all trades.  You aren't likely (and I mean even remotely likely), to find a replacement as well schooled in the aspects of all areas that the present incumbent is.  

It is a simple reality.  Water, sewer and highway expertise are not components of that position.

The nature of the beast today is that such professionals are geared toward the administrative aspects of operation of a town.  What, or I should say who, we end up with will most definitely be dependent upon the then nature of the position and of course the salary to be paid.  

Two years seems like a long time but if we are repaving the road, it is barely long enough to start with the planning stages now.  Just an opinion, as always.

It has been very quiet out there relative to the election season.  If you have nay scoops, give me a heads up.

I honestly thought things would be much more active right now.  Go figure.  The burnout factor  must be much larger than I anticipated.  

Anyway, that's it today.  Just a few random thoughts thrown at you.   Have a good day and Be Safe!