Terry Cowgill

Bar Car

The recent failure of the Connecticut General Assembly to pass a law banning open containers of alcohol in vehicles raises an interesting question. Do we really need such laws? Evidently the NYT thinks it’s a no-brainer.

As I told a regular reader of this blog in an email a few moments ago, I really could care less whether passengers are sipping tea or doing boilermakers so long as the driver is sober. Driving while impaired is strictly prohibited. So, for that matter, is making such a disturbance in a car as to cause an accident, as drunken passengers might do. Sounds to me like we’re already covered.

Unless someone can provide compelling evidence that allowing passengers to consume alcohol will result in higher drunk driving rates, then I’m inclined to chalk this failed legislation up as a “feel-good” measure that would do nothing more than make lawmakers and victims of drunk driving feel like they are doing something about the problem.

BTW I’d put hate crimes in the same category. Lynching, beating, raping and murder are already serious crimes punishable by lengthy prison sentences, life in prison or worse. But hey, it makes us feel better when we can impose a special sanction on a criminal if he tortures another man just because he’s gay or African American.

The folly of that sentiment was best illustrated by the Texas lynching death of James Byrd, a black man who was savagely beaten by three white men, tethered to a car, dragged three miles and ultimately decapitated.

Civil right advocates were upset at then-Gov. George W. Bush for his opposition to hate crimes legislation. Even without such measures, two of the three men were sentenced to death and the third was given a life sentence. All this was accomplished without hate crime laws. Imagine that …

Why The Silence?

The more I learn about Barack Obama, the more I am convinced the Dems will be making a big mistake nominating him. By themselves, Bittergate, Tony Rezko and Rev. Wright don’t amount to a hill of beans. Considered together, however, they (and others like them) spell trouble for him in November.

Take his wife, for example. Regular readers will recall I did a post on Michelle Obama in February regarding a truly bizarre speech in which she suggested government needed to “save our souls.” Last week in North Carolina she gave an equally disturbing and little noticed talk on “Moving the Bar.”

Please, don’t take my word on how brooding and intensely pessimistic she is. Click here for the full transcript or here for the full audio (unfortunately it’s more than an hour long). Tell me if you don’t feel like slitting your wrists after only 10 minutes of listening to this stuff. It’s not only depressing but offensive.

Continue reading Why The Silence?…

Come Back Or I’ll Bite Your Legs Off!

After watching Hillary’s post Indiana razor-thin victory speech last night, I was struck by how the cable pundits were casting it as very conciliatory and a sign that she’s ready to throw in the towel soon.

Baloney! She said some nice words about party unity but Hillary also claimed that “We’ve broken the tie,” vowed to proceed “full speed to the White House” and issued implicit fundraising appeals. Those don’t sound like the words of a candidate on the verge of giving up, but rather more like the Energizer Bunny (or a Timex).

Indeed, Colin McEnroe has come up with a better analogy from pop culture to describe Hillary’s doggedness. Like the black night in Monty Python & The Holy Grail, Hillary is unjustifiably confident, has had various limbs severed and cannot really fight back. Instead, like the knight, the best she can do is taunt Obama and bleed on him.

What do you say, Mark Devey, our resident Monty Python expert? Does the analogy hold water … er, blood?

Region 1 2008 Budget Referendum Results

Here are today’s Region 1 budget referendum results. It passed handily, but there were a few surprises in the town votes that I will elaborate on in Thursday’s print edition.

TOWN	             YES	NO	TOTAL
Cornwall	      51	7	58
Falls Village	      60	17	77
Kent	             101	51	152
North Canaan	      67	56	123
Salisbury	     110	19	129
Sharon	              48	30	78

---------------------------------------------
TOTALS	             437	180	617

Vote Today (but not for prez!)

No, this is not Indiana or North Carolina, where presidential primaries are taking place as I write this. But this is also the day we can all vote of the proposed budget for the Region One School District, which serves six NWC towns and features a regional high school.

Click here to download a relatively recent copy of that document (PDF- Adobe Reader required), then get over to your town hall, where the polls opened about half an hour ago and where they’ll close at 8 p.m.

Here are the thumbnails:

Polls open at noon at local town halls and remain open until 8 p.m.


Hey, if you were one of almost 600 people motivated to go to Friday’s town meeting in Salisbury to weigh in on spending $2 million for a piece of property for a new transfer station, then you owe it to yourself to vote up or down on a budget of close to $14 million.

And Marshall is right. I’m not sure I agree with Peter Halle, who said in an earlier comment that low turnout is a sign of “contentment.” A yes vote would be such a sign. Staying away from the polls shows an unwillingness to participate. Sounds more like “disengagement” to me.

I will post the referendum results in this space shortly after the polls close tonight — not that very many people will care about spending $14 million …

The Mother of All Meetings

No, the headline of this post is no exaggeration. I’d say Friday’s town meeting in Salisbury was easily the most crowded and eventful I have seen since I started writing about the town more than three years ago.

On a personal and professional level, it was also a first for me. Since wi-fi was working inside the Congregational Church, I live-blogged the event (see the post below this one) and took notes for a news story for this week’s print edition as well.

I’ve heard from several people who said they appreciated that approach. One of them walked up to me Saturday in the Stop & Shop and said she was out for dinner Friday night and unable to attend, but wanted to know what the verdict was. She was delighted to be able to learn about here it as soon as she got home.

As for the meeting itself, it went pretty much as I expected it to. It was passionate and well attended, attracting about 500 taxpayers. But the thing that has always amazed me is how few people usually turn out for town meetings and public hearings on routine budgets, but then fall all over themselves to come to meetings like this last one.

The town of Salisbury, for example, will hold a town meeting May 21 to approve the proposed town and local education budgets, which total $7.5 million. The Region One School District, which includes our regional high school, will hold a referendum Tuesday on a proposed budget of almost $14 million.

In Salisbury, perhaps a couple dozen people will vote on the annual town budget. And in Region One, they’re lucky to get 10% of eligible voters to weigh in on that huge sum of money. But try spending a relatively paltry $2 million to acquire a piece of property for a new transfer station and everybody and their grandmother (literally, in some cases) shows up to be part of the seething throng. Go figure …

I am convinced the opponents of the Luke-Fitting site are done yet. Here’s my shot-in-the-dark prediction and you heard it here first: The Belgo Road crowd will hire Michael Klemens, the Salisbury resident and eminent herpetologist, to scour the site for bog turtles, blue spotted salamanders and any other protected species they can find to derail the project. Then there will be expensive litigation that will double or triple the town’s line item for legal fees.

As Bill O’Reilly would ask with faux humility, “Am I wrong? I’ll give you the last word … “

Live Blogging the Town Meeting

9:20 p.m. It passed 364-175!

9:15 p.m. Charlie Vail just told me 490 people got ballots but about 13 left before voting. They are still counting.

9:08 p.m. As we wait, Sally Spillane tells me the only reason so many people showed up is that “transfer stations are the only spontaneous meetings places for adults in the Salisbury-Sharon area. That’s why this meeting was so well attended.” I would add that I’m sure the politicians want to preserve transfer stations. They love to campaign there. Just ask Andrew Roraback.

8:50 p.m. Allen Cockerline moves to take the vote and dozens of people fall all over themselves to second. Much laughter. There is confusion. 2/3 majority needed to end the debate. The only way to tell without a voice vote to end the debate is to have people stand to signify their approval. Motion carries almost unanimously. People start to fill out their yellow ballots. Cockerline deserves a medal! Bless him!

8:40 p.m. Curtis Rand gave an impassioned defense of Joe Cleaveland telling him his property is NOT for sale! Applause …

8:38 p.m. Jeff Livingston asks what “other municipal uses” the Luke Fitting porperty could be used for. He then says, “I’ve heard that language before.” Then he talks about the war in Iraq as an example of deception. Many groans …

8:33 p.m. Mike Larose is trying to start a war with Sharon: “Is she a good neighbor to us? … We are not Sharon’s dumpster. Let her step up to the plate.”

8:26 p.m. The question of whether Millerton would join in has come up. Palmer said he would not support it: “We don’t need more garbage.”

8:15 p.m. Bob Palmer is making a compelling case against staying at the Hotchkiss site. He referred to the presence of all that skunk cabbage as evidence that modern state wetlands regs would virtually prohibit significant expansion at the Hotchkiss site.

8 p.m. Blah, blah, blah, reading the call and lots of other details.

7:50 p.m. People are are still streaming as moderator Charlie Vail lays down the law. The balcony is rapidly filling up.

7:40 p.m. and we show no signs of starting. Check that, 7:42 and Mike Fitting is making the church’s disclaimer so it looks like we’re underway.

7:25 p.m. Mike says the line is still stretching out ot Main Street. We could be looking at an 8 pm start.

7:15 p.m. Mike Flint says there are people lined up out the side door of the church all the way to Rt. 44. Mike says if it we can get this many people to a town meeting, then Salisbury should buy property more often

7 p.m. and there’s already 100 people here. I’ll bet the balcony will be full.

Transfer This - The Movie

The town of Salisbury is buzzing about tonight’s BIG town meeting on a $2 million proposal to buy land for a new transfer station. I haven’t seen this much anticipation since the 2004 meeting about letting a cell tower into town.

The meeting starts promptly at 7:30 p.m. in the Congregational Church, but I’m told officials are expecting a packed house of possibly several hundred voters, so I would advise getting there by 7.

Two big questions for me:

#1 (and most obvious): Will it pass? Notwithstanding the relatively late effort by the (mostly) Belgo Road residents to derail the project, I do not sense enough of a groundswell to defeat it. But hey, I’ve been wrong before.

#2: How long will the discussion last before the vote is taken? In the town meeting form of government, citizens act as the legislature and so they are permitted to engage in deliberations before voting, just as elected legislators would. I’d say you can expect a motion to vote if the deliberations take more than 45 minutes. If the motion passes, then we fill out our ballots and let the chips fall where they may.

There has been a flurry of emails making the rounds just since the LJ came out yesterday. One in particular between Selectman Jim Dresser and Elaine Laroche is most interesting. Click here to read the exchange. And click here for two more emails from Betty Mitchell and Maureen Jerome.

Meanwhile, if the wireless network is working in the church, I will live blog the event right here and perhaps even upload a brief video report. If not, I will simply get the results up as quickly as possible.

In A Nutshell :)

Looking for a 7-minute video that comically summarizes the Democratic nomination process to this point? Slate has really advanced the concept of web video, both in terms of quality and content. Enjoy …

Mysterious Flier’s Origins Unknown

Note: The following is a sidebar I wrote to accompany the story on the proposed acquisition of the Luke and Fitting properties in this morning’s print edition. Because of a lack of space, it was not published, so this is a tcextra.com Web exclusive.

SALISBURY — As if showing up in force at the first two informational meetings last month wasn’t enough, Belgo Road residents are apparently mobilizing against the proposed acquisition of the Luke and Fitting properties with a flier and an ad in this week’s Lakeville Journal urging taxpayers to vote no on the $2 million proposal.

The flier addresses “Belgo Road Residents” and states in bold letters, “DO NOT let the town transfer station (the dump) move into our Belgo Road backyard … If approved, we would face increased traffic flow on our road, noise from the transfer station, as well as smells that will emanate from that location.”

It is not clear who produced the flier since it is unsigned. Belgo Road resident Michael LaRose placed the ad in today’s paper. LaRose denied any involvement with the fliers.

“I believe you have a duty to stand up and speak your mind,” he said in an interview. Of the possibility that the flier was not produced by someone on Belgo Road, LaRose added, “That crossed my mind. Anonymous material doesn’t pass the smell test.”

At Monday night’s public hearing on the proposed 2008-09 town and education budgets, First Selectman Curtis Rand told this reporter a town contractor had found a copy of the flier on Belgo Road. The flier bears little resemblance to LaRose’s ad.

The flier informs weekenders that absentee ballots will not be accepted at the May 2 town meeting to accept or reject the purchase and to call Rand “if you find this unacceptable.” The flier also touts the purported advantages of remaining at the current site owned by The Hotchkiss School. Rand has said the nearest homes on Belgo Road are at least a mile away from the proposed site.

LaRose, a part-time resident from Sparta, N.J., has been passionate and aggressive on several fronts in his opposition to the proposed purchase of the Luke and Fitting properties, especially at the two informational meetings that were held last month.

“This deal stinks, but it’s not the garbage,” he quipped.

LaRose said the Luke and Fitting properties are too expensive. He characterized the last-minute offer by Hotchkiss for a new 50-year lease as “extremely generous.” And he is particularly concerned that the town of Sharon, with whom Salisbury has partnered at the Hotchkiss site since 1975, is not sharing in the financial and legal risks associated with purchasing the Luke and Fitting properties.

“I’m sure they’re laughing at us,” LaRose added.

LaRose’s sentiments were echoed by 22-year Belgo Road resident Betty Mitchell, who also denied knowing anything about the flier: “This is just not a well thought-out plan.”

— Terry Cowgill