2/28/2005 Work session notes
This was looking to be a fairly quiet meeting. Not much new to discuss, just the tabled items from last month (Campaign Finance, Riverdale Community Building use, Sister City adoption) approval of enough minutes to choke a small horse. Oh, and one other minor item, on the second page of the agenda.

Then CM Badders mentioned the town taking down a few trees on Riverside Drive to allow a homeowner to put in a driveway. A second driveway. At the back of his property. For his mobile home.

Alert resident David Lingua asked about the town taking on an expense like this (unofficial estimates from various people who were there, perhaps all wrong, ranged from around $1000 to several thousand). Mayor Tiberio "clarified" that who would pay for what had not been determined.

CM Kiernan noted that the town had often asked homeowners to pay for moving a curb cut (what the rest of us know as a "driveway entrance"), much less adding one. CM Badders didn't seem to think there was a problem, and said he would approach every case that came before him as a separate case; no precedent was being set here. It'll be on the agenda next week.

A few more minor items were added. One was allowing the Judges of Election to accept ballots where the voter had put a check mark in the box instead of an "X" (CM Hiles added that he would like to change the inner envelope used for absentee ballots so you didn't need a completely legible signature for your absentee ballot to be counted, one of the many recommendations of the Elections Appeals Board in 2003. Thank you David!). One was deciding whether to sign up for the county's (state's?) mosquito control program.


Oh, then there was the item on the second page. The item proposing amendment of the Town Charter to raise the tax cap. Or just get rid of it.


This might be an OK thing to do, but why wait until the very last minute to introduce it? It needs to be introduced next week (March 7), and approved at the April 4 meeting to go into effect for this years budget. That leaves around two weeks breathing room (only useful if the council approves it at a special legislative meeting, much more out of the public eye). This could have been discussed for several months before it needed to be introduced, instead we have one week.

Sigh.
- posted by Alan K. Thompson @ 10:28 PM 0 comments

 
Grrrrrrrrrrrrr
Friday my lovely wife Sarah received an unwanted letter in the mail. It was addressed to the, um, "hibernating" group RAPTOR (Resident's Association for Progress in the Town of Riverdale...........Park), and was from a group called "GRRRR: Get Rid of Riff-Raff out of Riverdale!"

Their definition of Riff-Raff was broad, including at its most offensive all "ethnics." There was plenty more to be offended about in that letter.

I am disgusted and appalled that this sort of thing would be distributed in our town, and that a person or people who feel that way live here. I hope that whoever sent it (they gave NO contact information) will crawl back under their rock and learn to appreciate the diversity that brought many of us to this town.
- posted by Alan K. Thompson @ 10:48 AM 1 comments

 
David Hiles' Blog has moved
CM David Hiles used to have his blog as a web page on his mac.com site. He recently moved it to riverdalepark.blogspot.com.

When I started this blog, I thought seriously about taking the riverdalepark.blogspot.com address, but decided that Riverdale Park was about more than my politics; I think it's more than David's "miscellaneous information relevant to Ward 2 residents" as well.

Update: 2/13/2005 11:05 After I posted this note yesterday, I realized that people could complain the same way about my snagging of riverdale-park-politics. I did (at least plan to) offer this space to opposing viewpoints, and wanted it to be a general discussion area. David might well be open to that with RiverdalePark as well (he was quick to open his blog to comments when I pointed out that he could get feedback on his thoughts that way).
- posted by Alan K. Thompson @ 7:19 AM 0 comments