My Loyal Friends, Part II

I must begin this column with some bad news. In Part I on this subject my friend Eddie and my cat Brownie combined to give me some grief, as you may recall. Unfortunately, that will be the last time that particular duo will combine to drive me bonkers. On Saturday last old Brownose ran a cropper with a vehicle on Main Street in front of Crane Manor and came out second best. So after 8 ½ years of the cat in charge here, Brownie is off to wherever good little cats go when their ticket is punched.

So this means I’m going to have to do my columns by myself, with no help from the mousecatching machine, so if you denote a drop-off in the quality of my ravings you will know the reason.

Now we shall return to my Loyal Friends and pick up where we dropped off. We had been talking about a folder of ideas called “If I Were a Selectman” and examine some of these really dandy thoughts, which I guess, for lack of a better description, comprise what passes for a hypothetical platform.

• Term limits for all elected officials; no more than two full terms shall be allowed.

• Pit bull owners must post liability insurance in the amount of $5 million per animal owned. Animal must be muzzled and on a leash when outside.

• I would pledge to reduce the operating budget 5% per year for the next three years

• I would work to make Arizona Governor Jan Brewer an honorary citizen of the town of Norfolk and make her the first annual recipient of the Norfolk “Excellence in Courageous Leadership” medal with crossed swords.

• I would immediately move to name the new school “The Sergeant Adam Kennedy School.” I would make sure there was a display of Adam’s life incorporated as a permanent part of the lobby so that we will never forget the sacrifice made by this young hero.

• All bond issues would be presented at Town Meeting on the warrant as “truth in lending” documents showing the total interest paid over the life of the loan. Let me give you a hypothetical example. If you buy a Toyota and finance the vehicle for five years the dealer will give you a disclosure form which states sell price of car $18,000, length of loan 5 years, number of payments 60, interest rate 4.9%, amount of payments $384 per month, for a total amount to be paid of $23000 over the life of the loan. But in Norfolk when we are asked to build a school and the amount is given as $40 million, this is not the true amount of the cost. The interest expense is shown somewhere else and is not correlated into the loan. If it were it would appear as amount of bond (loan) $40 million, interest rate 3%, total amount to be repaid at the end of 40 years $57 million. (Let’s not have any of you CPA types panicking…. these are hypothetical guesses off the top of my head for illustrative purposes only, but they do reflect order of magnitude.) I asked a man in town who is very experienced and eminently qualified to comment on this and his comment was, “If we did this we would never get anything passed.” Think about that, folks.

• We would immediately institute a system of veteran’s preference in our hiring practice. If a veteran is qualified for the job, he immediately goes to the top of the list and is offered the job first.

• All of the folks in town who supported the new school by stating “the best time to build a new school is when the economy is in a deep depression” will be rounded up and sent off to Rosalie Bergdorf’s home for the hopelessly insane for 45 days observation. At the end of the observation period they will be strapped into chairs where they will be forced to watch “The new Adventures of Old Christine” twenty-four hours a day interspersed with the Honda ads featuring Mr. Opportunity. That ought to snap them out of their madness.

• I would do some serious thinking and planning about our cemetery situation and the needs of the future.

• Our cable TV rates are going through the roof and with no end in sight, it’s time to look at other options. For instance, Norwood Light has its own cable system and they charge $89.99 a month for digital cable TV, Internet, and unlimited telephone service. We need to look into this type of operation. We’re being hosed.

• I would contact Scott Brown and say “Scott, you need to get the Pondville Hospital site cleaned up for us and then work some magic whereby Norfolk and Walpole gain title to the land and then get us some of the magic money from the stimulus package. (I’m sure there’s some left that hasn’t been wasted yet.) Then perhaps some sanity will take hold and we can merge Public Safety (fire and police departments) along with DPWs with the town of Walpole and get appropriate consolidated buildings built and functional. Scott, if there is anyone in Washington uniquely positioned to cut through the baloney, it’s you. We need some payback, as we’ve been getting stiffed on the prison funds for too long.”

• I would work with our legislators to urge them to file bills which would eradicate tenure from our public school systems.

• Finally, the Stop & Shop fiasco in the center of town must be resolved, by whatever means are necessary. It’s time for some innovative thinking, some bold strategy, some frank talk, and some spirited negotiations to get this mess off dead center. Perhaps this could be the site of one of the much bally-hooed gambling casinos. Maybe we should call the Governor and invite him out again?

But don’t get your hopes up boys and girls. This is just pie-inthe sky stuff. There’s not enough tea in China to make me get involved in this madness.