Friday, October 31, 2008

Criminal indeed


So our illustrious Select Board, none of whom have any business background, asked ever so nicely for Municipal Department Heads who oversee our $65 million operation to come up with coping mechanisms for next years budget (besides drugs of course):

Cherry Hill—you know, that vital luxiourious game of golf—came up with a dozy:


8. List at least one area where efficiency might be improved for FY 10.


Utilize Department of Corrections inmates to a greater extent to provide no Cost maintenance work at Cherry Hill.

Wow. The NIMBY’s are just going to love that! (Especially battle ax Hilda Greenbaum). Sure, bus in the muggers, rapist and murders--as long as they work for free.

Since it was the immediate neighbors (especially the Greenbaum’s) that brought us Cherry Hill to begin with over 20 years ago, sounds like poetic justice to me.

In 2001 the cost of incarceration in Massachusetts was$37,718 annually while the national average was only $24,052. And I have got to believe it’s a lot higher now. Yeah leave it to a town bureaucrat to shift costs to some other (state) budget as long as it makes her look good.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Talk about criminal:


AMHERST, Mass. (abc40) - Staff at Mark's Meadow Elementary School have been running the water around the building for five minutes every morning after tests came back for elevated levels of lead in the water, according to Interim Co-Superintendent of Schools Helen Vivian.

She said the levels were not that serious and were probably because of lead content in old pipes and fixtures in the building. She said the pipes and fixtures where the elevated levels were found are being replaced, but the staff is running the water first thing in the morning so water that sits in the pipes overnight accumulating the lead is flushed out.

The elementary school is located on the University of Massachusetts campus.


Not at all suprised by this... not at friggan all.

Isn't lead, in a public building's drinking water pipes, supposed to be removed, by law?

Also, I wonder why the water was tested at all, I mean, it's so UNLIKE the school maint dept to do ANYTHING to protect students...

Anonymous said...

Amherst has been testing the water at schools in Amherst, for years. A a cafeteria worker, I know, so there is no hanky-panky going on. I worked at Wildwood and they tested it at least twice a yeaar.

Until later................

Anonymous said...

Well, if they were testing MM twice a year they would've seen the elevated lead already. Has it been getting passed over I wonder?

Larry Kelley said...

And Mark's Meadow is owned by Umass.

Town Meeting member Nancy Gordon wanted to close it down and split the kids up between the other elementary schools in town--especially since it is the smallest one (not to mention falling apart)

Anonymous said...

Inmate labor in this state is not not free. You have to pay the "detail" gaurd to watch the workers. You also need to have more than one gaurd if they are working in different locations on the course.

So at $45.00 and hour for one detail officer you can hire 5 seasonal employees at $9.00 an hour.

Anonymous said...

Looking at the enrollment numbers and projected numbers, Marks Meadow should be closed.

Larry Kelley said...

Thanks, good to know. That amount would probably be charged to a different account (other than the Golf Course) and LSSE would simply hope nobody notices. That's the way they stay in "business".

Will be interesting to see if this issue comes up tonight at the Select Board meeting. Or will they be too focused on national politics?

Anonymous said...

"And Mark's Meadow is owned by Umass."


Yes and maintained by Ron Bohonowicz and Peter Crouse with the middle school maint dept.

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