Sunday, February 1, 2009
Deliberative Session, Saturday February 7th 2009, 9:00am on the main floor of the Town Hall
Evidently the televisions have been turned off at the homes of the town's department heads, Selectmen and Winchester's School Board members; how else to explain their actions and attitudes towards the citizens of Winchester. Perhaps it's just an inability to read and understand that the whole country is facing a fiscal crisis and now is not the time to be rewarding themselves with cost of living raises, performance raises and department budget increases, while the rest of us are forced to face reality and tighten our belts and go without. Where is the fiscal responsibility that we entrusted them with when we cast our votes? Why do they continue this trend of wasteful, unnecessary spending at a time when the state and other towns are laying off employees and cutting back on expenditures in an effort to reduce the strain on families and working parents struggling to make ends meet? It's time to stop this shameful conduct and greed and to send a loud and clear message to those that just don't seem to care about the rest of us. It's time to stand up and be heard and let them know that the citizens of Winchester won't stand for this irresponsible conduct and indifference any longer. Join us at the Deliberative session and raise your voices. Let them know that if they turn a deaf ear to us, we will cast them out come March.
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16 comments:
It is shameful that our elected officials just keep adding to our woes by continuously looking for more and more money every year, while they continue to ignore the voices of the people in town who can't afford any more tax increases. I just don't understand their way of thinking. Have they forgotten they work for us? My husband and I will be there Saturday morning and we will let them know we are very dissatisfied with them.
I have been in the area over 30 years. During that time period Winchester has had the attitude that the town and a certain few could do whatever they wanted. Now, 30 years later we have to teach them to play nice in the sand box and watch out for others. I do believe that it is time to replace the higher ups. Please understand that when voting you need to choose the person that will vote in your fiscal best interest. This time we need to vote for action not personalities.
On the Today show this morning, NBC did a segment on how there is growing hunger and homelessness in our neighbor state, MA. The majority of people going to foodbanks are employed, but can't earn enough to support their family needs. We're not talking the third world here, wake up, it's happening right next door. It's time for the people that formulate these municipal budgets, to wake up do something to help the people in these hard times. The government can't continue this upward spiral in local taxes. Vote No !!!!
We can not worry about other people in other localities, we have a big problem here and now. We must get our act together here in Winchester quickly before it is to late. Four things that must happen.
1. Send the tax and spend selectmen packing. Selectmen who shelter employees like Dale Gray and Margaret Sharra.
2. Cut the municipal budget by $200,000.00
3. Make the Highway Superintendent job an elected position, then maybe the next person in charge with know the meanings of "fair contract bidding", staying within the budget, getting to work on time and not using our town equipment for a taxi.
4. Remove Margaret Sharra from any boards and committees before she makes a truck and car junk yard, dust pits and race track out the rest of our town. She and the planning board have destroyed the best commercial land in the county on Route 10.
As expected from past showings, very few townspeople attended yesterday's deliberative session. Out of 2905 registered voters in town, about 60 people all told showed up. The audience was made up mostly of town employees, their spouses and other family members and friends. Needless to say, every article adding spending to next years budget was passed and will appear on this years ballot. Articles inserted by petition were either heavily amended or voted out, including an article that was submitted to help disabled taxpayers, on fixed income, get an optional credit on their property tax bills. Though this article would not have added any spending to the budget, it was debated heavily with selectman Fraser raising concerns about the number of people who might benefit from getting a paltry $750.00 tax break. It was quite evident that this process is a stacked deck for the town,ensuring the selectmen and department heads get exactly what they want.
If voters don't show up at the polls and vote no on every article that adds spending to next years budget; your indifference to what is happening in your town will result in many for sale signs popping up in every neighborhood.
The annual Whippie family reunion was a joke as usual. People will vote.
I was one of the very few who attended and I am so angry at what transpired at that meeting, especially the way the voting went on all of the items adding more to the budget. It was so disheartening to see time and time again our town employees supporting increased spending and the burden they will place on all of us if we don't defeat these warrant articles on election day. With all of the information these fine people have supplied and all of their efforts to inform citizens I just don't understand why the turn out was so low. Doesn't anyone besides me and the few others who showed up care enough about our town to take an interest in what is going on and to participate? I am so ashamed of Winchester right now.
We can understand your anger Mary K. and frustration. We can only provide information and facts and if people in town don't care enough about the things that effect their lives and livelihoods here in Winchester; then there's not much we can do about it, except continue to try to educate and inform. It would seem that the Town's attempts to smear us had some effect on people; however we don't plan on going away and will continue our efforts and report our findings; but remember that old adage; " You can lead a horse to water; but you can't make him drink." It's up to the citizens of Winchester to decide if they want to continue on the path they're on, or to promote change for the betterment of all.
Mary K we are not giving up or giving into the clique of which includes the selectmen,town employees,their families and friends who stacked the town hall Feb 7 against us tax payers. We have other tools to deal with them. Again I am publishing another newsletter mailed to every household in Winchester. "No holds bared" approach like I did to the town manager's position. THE WASTEFUL SPENDING DIDN'T STOP WITH THE TOWN MANGER REMOVED. People will have a chance to see first hand that no one at town hall learn a lesson last year and went on still wasting and spending our tax dollars. Maybe we can arouse the anger again against the people we elected to look out for the best interest of the tax payers. The town manger found out how people feel about wasting our tax dollars. Vote Sherman Tedford and Ted Whippie out of office in March 10.
I am running for selectmen this year and I hope you vote for me. Knowing you will have a "voice" and a "watch dog" in the town hall.
Hang in there web site, the town will come out to vote, as long as they have guys like Bob to stick there neck out. If you stand up for change in Winchester and you need any town services you're dead in the water.It's a shame when the rest of the country gets it and we all go to work every day, those that still have a job, to support the increases instead of cutbacks.
Take a look a the web site of gov. lynch and check out Johns inaugural address, then check out the towns wish list. We may as well change Winchester to Wonderland.
(no holds barred) same thing as slander ????
To the anonymous poster above .. Perhaps it would have been wise to take a minute or two to look up the meaning of both terms before you posted. Talk about a wild stretch of the imagination.
Slander is:
the spoken or transitory form of defamation of character, a legal term that refers to a falsehood presented as true which could harm the reputation of a person or an entity.
No holds barred:
Is actually a wresting term, which refers to holds, meaning without restrictions or rules.
Though I really can't speak for Mr. Davis, I think the point he was trying to make was that he would double his efforts to bring to light issues he feels are important to all of the citizens of Winchester and that he would be even more vigilant (*carefully observant or attentive)
in his efforts to help people understand, that some people that we have elected act as though they are more interested in looking out for themselves, than acting in the best interest of the townspeople and taxpayers. To hint he was attempting to defame anyone was ludicrous. Perhaps the selectmen should make sure there is at least one Webster's in each department, in this case it would seem that the money would be well spent for a change.
{SLANDER} It would be a wast of time with all the scary truth there is out there.
If they think for one moment that people in town are going to vote for more increases they are truly out of touch with the town. I am one of those disabled folks on social security getting a very small fixed income and getting any king of a tax break would have really helped me and the Mrs. get by without having to keep dipping into our retirement money. Someone had the right idea and went through all of the trouble of getting the required signatures and submitting them on time only to have the very people we trust to do their best for all of us, not only vote down the warrant, but change it to nothing. We will be sure to do the same when we vote no on things they want to spend our money on.
At deliverable session we pay thousands of tax payer dollars to Bart Mayor who's job it is to oversee the fact we have a fair and honest town meeting, to protect the rights of the citizens of Winchester. Not the rights of Kevin Whippie nephew of Selectmen Ted Whippie who presented the changes to article 21 and Selectmen Roberta Fraser who defended the complete changing of the meaning to the petitioned warrant article. Instead we get a town lawyer present that has allowed the deliberative session to become a complete joke. It was a total slap in the face to the disabled property owners when
Whippie changed the amount to zero from $750.00 under the optional property allowance of $750.00 allowed by state law NH RSA 72:37b. Bart Mayor's contempt for the citizens of Winchester at deliberative session," I never see a town like this one"! Well I have never seen a lawyer with the likes of him! If I am elected selectmen these things will change.
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