Culture of Failure

Sloppy accounting
(source: Editorial, Cape Cod Times 12/29/09)

With a new business manager and, before long, a new superintendent and deputy superintendent, Bourne residents can hope that bookkeeping blunders and surprise deficits at the schools will soon become a bad memory.
Meanwhile, they should remember two lessons from the accounting mess reported by an outside auditor.
One is the value of a smart and experienced financial manager and staff — exacting people who know the rules and practices and consistently get things right in their accounting.
The other is the value of a second set of eyes — administrators and department heads reviewing financial reports, matching budget and expenses, making sure their line items are reported correctly.
The Bourne school system seems not to have met those requirements. So reported the auditor retained by the town to explain the school deficit that caused a turmoil last summer and recommend "internal controls" to prevent future deficits.
The deficit was discovered only when the town's finance director tried to match school expenses with the approved budget at the end of the fiscal year in June and discovered a gap of somewhere between $300,000 and $600,000.
That news, plus a cut in state aid, cost the jobs of two assistant principals, three teachers, a bus driver and a bus aide; it caused cutbacks in custodian and lunch room monitor staffing and other belt-tightening measures; it forced a major reshuffling of classroom positions.
The actual deficit proved to be $370,740, the report says. The auditor found unbudgeted payroll costs of $415,940 and unbudgeted school lunch costs of $126,152. Somehow, $243,473 in "impact aid" (for teaching children of military reservation families) got counted twice and that certainly was a major problem.
Item after item, the audit reports such inanities as "transportation costs should not be classified as salaries" and "refrigeration repairs...were recorded to a substitute teacher salary account... ." How could "telephone services" wind up in a fuel account? How could the business office overspend because "consulting services totaling $27,115 did not appear to have been budgeted... ."?
Documentation for expenditures and for accounting changes often seem to be skimpy. The auditor urges that the business office "eliminate making manual adjustments to the payroll journal," which are "time-consuming and susceptible to human error... ."
The business manager has left, but the problem doesn't end with confused bookkeeping entries. Why weren't the mistakes noticed? Didn't the person in charge of spending for substitute teachers notice he or she was being charged for refrigeration repairs? Don't the principals and department heads study financial reports?
Maybe that's the problem. One of the "primary reasons" the deficit was allowed to develop was the "lack of monitoring the school budget on a line-item basis," the report concludes.
The auditor doesn't say who should monitor, but the target is pretty clear. The superintendent and deputy superintendent have announced they will retire next summer. Their successors don't need to be accountants, but they need to understand financial management.

Why publish this recent editorial by the Cape Cod Times related to the Town of Bourne's School Department's abysmal record of internal financial controls? Because when I worked at DOR we had to examine similar problems on theTown AND School sides of Bourne's financial operations. That was almost 20 years ago. So, you may ask, was I surprised to see this editorial about problems of the most basic day to day operations of how the Bourne School System deals with their budget? NO.

That is because the type of shoddy accounting and auditing procedures in any community have a historical imperative. It's almost as if a lack of repsect for the correct way of doing the simplest things gets lost under the great weight of prevailing culture and the values that culture and custom reflect. Obviously, in Bourne, after several warnings and serious consequences due to poor performance of simple, yet necessary procedures, they once again need retraining and hiring of the top management postions. And even in a School System, a Superintendent is a manager first and overseer of education second. Or they should be.

How does this relate to Fall River? Well, aside from the fact both communities share an ocean view and long bridges for which they are famous, I believe they also share an obvious disdain for doing things the way they should be done in a day-to-day business procedures sense. It is obvious to even the casual observer that doing things the right way simply because it's the right way to do them is not high on this City's priority list, and never has been.
While the elected officals in Fall River pay lip service to good administration, they sit by without truly understanding whether those doing the jobs of Finance Director/Treasurer, Tax Collector, Property Tax Assessor, City Auditor and finally, on the City side of things, The Auditors of the City's financial operations, are doing their jobs adequately, let alone well. While the Mayor is directly responsible for appointment of these individuals, and must make final determination of the quality and competence of their and their departments work, the City Council also plays a substantial role in monitoring just how effectively these people perform. Afterall, the final approval of requested budgets is only a part of their involvement.
The part of checks and balances that exist in a City with a strong Mayor form of government like this one mandates that, necessarily, the City Council  monitor progress of all the operations in this City, but particularly the engine that collects and expends tax dollars to keep city services moving. In fact, it may just be the most important thing the City Council does, their REAL reason for existing. At a minmum  I would expect to see a truly committed City Council  request what amounts to workplans and goals and objectives for each financial operation in the City. This could be set by the Mayor with the Council's input, but made as a condition of budget approval. That way there is a formal insistance on legal, competent, and hopefully eventually, "motivated to excellence"  performance. Right now, as we have seen these past two years, nothing like that comes close to existing. The more resolute City Council would serve as an effective counterbalance to a Mayor who may wish to steer this City in the wrong direction for personal gain, or simply out of pure ignorance of how things SHOULD be done.
There is simply too much evidence, historically, that the City itself does not place a high enough value on excellent performance of it's managers. It lacks even the most rudimentary methods to measure the job performance of managers. Goals and objectives don't even exist as viable, measureable concepts to the City Council. Excellence in performance has occurred by luck or the "golden hire" or two, people self motivated to do things well because they demand a level or personal excellence in all things they do. But that, clearly, has not been the case in Fall River as the norm. It seemingly cannot raise itself beyond the dictates of local controlling politics, the type of controlling politics that perpetuates poor performance because it does not make excellent performance it's primary objective. Convenience and control are all that are valued. It is this half hearted commitment and customary lax attitude towards excellence that allowed the truly egregious behavior of Mayor Correia, and his phalanx of all too willing incompetents too afraid of their own shadow to stop the madness we now have to deal with. And simply electing a new Mayor and replacing the toadies who aided and abetted the great rape of Fall River by Corriea, his top managers and staff, will not make the difference to turn Fall River around and once again put the City in the black unless there is a major, generations long committment to excellence in performance. It will take everyone involved to make this happen.
It takes a village to raise a child, but it also takes a village to raise expectaions as well. Goals and objectives must be promulgated for each City department, and the level of resource allocation as shown through budget funding has to be explained and defended each year in terms of reaching those goals and objectives. There is no better proven way to demand, and get, excellent performance from a qualified manager.
But this is not enough. I have never felt that this City's motto must be changed more than I do now. "We'll Try" bespeaks boldly only of feckless failure. It raises Fall River excellence to the level of mediocrity. Fall River has not been a successful going concern for generations now. I'm not spending much time worrying about a movie theater that has long since closed. That is for others to worry about.
What we all must be directly concerned with is establishing a tradition throughout this City of expecting and supporting the very best out of the people we hire to run things. It's not the resource level committed to the effort. Plenty of money has been spent trying to improve things. It's a real , city-wide commitment to expecting the best from the people we hire for them to do the right things for the right reason.. Phony slogans like "Pride, City Wide" will only become the object of derision, and as we have seen,  a sad irony given where we are now after the short reign of the man who foistered that slogan on a City wanting to believe. We all want to believe. This is one of the few areas where Fall River can start over from scratch.

"DRAIN MAN"

As we run down the final hours of the term of Robert Correa as Mayor of Fall River, we must look back to the days of yesteryear, when he first burst upon the scene as the most prominant idiot savant to ever serve so highly in the Massachusetts Legislature. Of course, there have been a legion of members of the Great and General Court who have had their intelligence, ethics, sexulaity, sobriety, probity  and progeny questioned, but none were as clearly defind in their limited capacities, with one area of  brilliance, as was Robert Correia, known forever more as the "DRAIN MAN"

Yes, the secret can now be told. Robert Correia had extremely limited intelligence caused by getting his infant head stuck in drain pipe when he was just a young lad of 3 months. In fact, most thought he wore the pointed dunce cap throughout his grade school years, until he reached 18 years of age, because he was, well, "limited". In point of fact he was, but also in point of fact...he had a point, in fact, at the top of his head! It simply had to be hidden, declared his loving mother.  In  fact, his first spoken words were not "mama" or "papa" but "pumba", or "plumber" for the person who saved his life. Psychiatrists felt the trauma of having his small head stuck in a drain and hearing that endless sound of water running along the sides of his skull and tumbling down the drain in a swirling tin-like grinding cacophony for 12 hours had caused his condition but also made him a devotee' of all thing DRAINS. His head had been a near perfect fit and caused an extremely powerful vacumn. He would suffer for the rest of his life with the never ending echo of water running down a drain rattling around his atrophied brain. It could be quite embarrassing for those with him when he felt the urge to get down on his knees at a moments notice , stick his head near any drain opening or pipe fixture through which he could hear draining water , and display the uncanny ability to tell those listening the cost of the water running through the water or sewer pipe, just by the sound. He could guague force and speed of the flow as well as volume, and his hobby of memorizing the water and sewer rates for all 351 Cities and Towns in Massachusetts soon paid off.

 " Melrose sewer rate and flow, that's $22.00 a month for this restaurant, $22 dollars, $22 dollars...no pennies, $22 dollars"! AMAZING...and he was never wrong. But alas, he had to sign his paychecks with an "X", like an Indian Chief from the Wild, Wild West contained in an old fashioned cheap ten cent novel. But even on vacations, like the photo from a trip to Thailand taken with the only other water flow idiot savant in the world, the one thing that gave him pleasure was to listen to the flow of water or sewerage through a pipe, any pipe, whether steel, copper or yes, even bamboo!

His political career started completely by accident. After a brief stint as a water meter reader for the Fall River Water/Sewer Department, a position he was granted with the help of a friendly City Councilor  his parents and family members had been giving maximum campaign contributions for over ten years. He happened to be at a political speech near what was to become the TA Restaurant, a speech given by an influential, long time Irish State Senator. The subject was a controversial Water and Sewer Bond Issue for which the City had requested state funding . When in response to a question about water and sewer bills in Fall River the Senator had stated "You find someone here who can tell me how much this restaurant has to pay each hour for water and sewer and I promise you, I'll get that bill passed". As he smiled to his Assitant as he left the stand, the crowd had pushed the DRAIN MAN up to him and Correia started, as usual "Restaurant in Fall River, $3.23 cents, $3.23, $3.23 water and sewer $3.23 per hour at peak times...." The State Senator exploded..." who are you, a wiseguy?...are you for real?"...DRAIN MAN spoke up, while twitching his head to the side, "Yes, I am, and so is the leaky pipe...leaky pipe, cause for excess drainage, excess drainage..leaky pipe Senator...for real, for real....."

Right then and there the State Senator knew he had a winner on his hands...and talked Correia's parents into allowing him to run for State Representative on a platform of controlling water and sewer rates and improving the water and sewer infrastructure through a huge public works project funded by state bonds, at no cost to Fall River. The State Senator began the local custom of sponsoring various House members in their runs for office, and he spoke at each of DRAIN MAN'S appearances, and the only time the crowd heard Correia's voice was when he would recite the cost of various people's bills out loud ,"Louis Aguiar, 14 Durfee Street, $254, $254,  no cents, no cents"...the crowds went wild in their appluase.The State Senator would then BOOM, "Hey this guy KNOWS about water and sewer, doesn't he?.....He's the perfect man for you and the City of Fall River!!!!"  Even though DRAIN MAN was little more than a flushing one trick pony and had the intelligence capacity of a mutant aphid, the State Senator was shameful in how he campaigned for and with his neophyte, idiot savant candidate. All the while, he taught him little about politics, or appropriate behavior, or even how to read or write. But the kid sure could stick his ear on a toilet drain pipe in a heartbeat. And the voters of Fall River loved him for it. They could relate extremely well with the idiot savant who they voted for in a landslide. A man of the people...a dullard, toilet  snuggling man of the people they took to their bosom. The closest thing to the DRAIN MAN politics would ever again witness was the imbecile Joe The Plumber, who usually was found going in circles IN the toilet. But that's another story for another time.

The years went by, and the State House in Massachusetts was the perfect place for a man of Correia's talents.  He understood little of what he voted on, was loyal to the leadership because they let him stay close to the Speaker's private toilet facility, and could impress each representative whenever the water and sewer improvement state bond issues would be taken up, usually every two years, at election time. His command of rate tables for every nook and cranny of the Commonwealth was truly impressive, and fooled this extended ship of fools into believing he was actually an intelligent being and not some profound freak of nature trapped within his own, noise filled mind. Then again, irony sometimes speaks louder than fact, and it was a fact that most representatives had less displayed cranial ability than the DRAIN MAN. He could at least speak authoritatively on A subject, where  most State Representatives barely could recite their own name and party affiliation with any genuine authority. His mental situation at least made DRAIN MAN independent, no matter how small an independence that was. It was this small amount of indepenence that would have tragic consequences for the head flinching, downcast looking simple man who reflected so many within his home community of Fall River.

Finally, after 30 years, Correia was banned from boarding the daily bus to Boston due to his insistance to lay up for the entire trip with his head stuck on the floor in the Greyhounds toilet facility, listening to the swishing chemicals, especially going around corners or when in stop and go traffic. He had grown , ah, sideways, as well as in outspoken, entiled attitude which frightened people around him. To say he was now a bullying, babbling, bubbling lusting idiot savant being was pretty much accurate. Not very pleasant to deal with, but still popular at home. On the Greyhound, not so much!

He took to slowly reciting the water and sewer charges, with a nasally, high pitched sound of a boy in puberty with a two pack a day smoking habit. People soon found themselves raising handkerchiefs to their noses and mouths in a sort of sympathetic sinus clearing precaution as he tried to slowly bark out his number recitations. The constant congestion sound could make a priest in a hospice feel uncomfortable.  But still, the voting populace in Fall River identified with this idiot savant and man of extremely limited intelectual capacity. DRAIN MAN was like them, he was still THEIR idiot! And so it was no surprise that after 30 years of bus rides and toilet sound fun, DRAIN MAN Correia ran for, and won, the race for Mayor of Fall River!

Most thought this the perfect marriage of man to issue, for the City of Fall River was now in the midst of a federal court judgement to develop a water and sewer system to account for storm water runoff to prevent further pollution of local waterways. This would entail a new rate structure tied to a vast, new sewerage and water infrastructure expansion and improvement program. Who else but the master of water and sewer rates to do this important job, everyone in Fall River thought. Problem was, he could only speak in terms of rates, nothing more. So when he was presented with a budget for municipal operations all he kept repeating was "rates too high, must cut rates, all rates to be cut, cut, cut". His finance and management team, too afraid to approach the now cranky and combative Correia, simply pared every department back to the level DRAIN MAN wished the sewer and water rate be cut, even though they knew the numbers just would not add up. Yes, the idiot savant had shown the Peter Principle to be true. He had finally reached the level of his incompetence, in true Fall River fashion.

But he wasn't completely without some smarts. The first thing he did was bark out orders to have a new bathroom built in his Mayor's office. When his Finance Director blurted out the City had 11 million dollars in Free Cash to spend, he immediately replied " $11 million, running water, bathroom, $11 million bathroom, hurry, hurry, $11 million, that's it, that's it, hurry, hurry". DRAIN MAN would while away in that bathroom for most days of his administration, on his hands and knees, flushing and reflushing the toilet, and running the shower at the same time, saying over and over "free, free, all this is free, all mine and all free and all mine". And later in his administration, he gave speedy approval for the "Mother of All Outhouses and Hot Dog Stands" proposal for the High School Athletic Fields. Idiot savant indeed. At least he knew what he wanted. EVERYTHING! But he still managed to cut every rate in the City. The fact he had no idea what he was doing was of concern to no one, until it was too late......

So...in the final analysis....who were the idiots?...and who was the savant?

Crime In Fall Rivah - The Intelligencia Imperative !

Hurricane logic, right MacAldrich and ucantbeserious?!

What a Bloddy Putz!

So many Fall River Vignettes , so may possibilities...too bad very few recent Durfee graduates know the meaning of the word "vignettes"!...thank you MMB...wonder how many records from the Title 1 Program from the time YOU were the administrator are missing? I wonder why the audits for your years have not been completed?  Resign now before you are found out MMB! The entire City is talking about it, MMB! Once you've been found out.....no one else will ever hire you again, and your "boy" is out in less than two weeks!
One thing you can count on MMB, you cannot insulate yourself from trouble by surrounding yourself with a cadre of high-priced management types to take the blame for your failure or create your version of an enemies list for possible replacement. The streets are full of talk about how those managers drink coffee in their offices all day and entertain other department heads who want only to not face the kids....trying to co-opt the teachers like you're trying to assimilate them into the BORG....how amaturish, yet so self defining....out of your depth and over your head, a typical Correia appointment. After all, would a man so full of himself, yet so stupid and crude possibly surround himself with people he felt were actually smarter than he, with people he could not easily scare and control? Teachers and staff have their OWN sponsors among the remaining politicians in Fall River MMB, and you've forgotten most of them live in Fall River, and that YOUR political cover is widely hated and leaving behind a trail of scorched earth that paints you as worse than Typhoid Mary, which means in the grand scheme of things, they are higher on the food chain than YOU. You don't think those politicians are getting an ear full of horror stories about you and your hired, Rhode Island groupies? You really do know so little about Fall River! Your fall from grace will be quick and final....just like you helped bring about to the last Superintendent when you worked with Correia to complete Fall River's last show trial and night of the long knives. Don't worry MMB, you are not the only ambitious one who works for the School Department.
BAHAHAHAHA!...oh, and one thing you can count on more than anything else...if those MCAS scores do not improve GREATLY, the entire School Committee will treat you the way all people NOT from Fall River are treated...like a thief in the night ! This is as predictable as Correia being an "ID" with shoes!

T'was The Night Before Christmas...Fall River Style!

T’was the night before Christmas, and all through house
Stirred the Tyrant Correia, he was such a louse,
He ripped up the stockings with nary a care
For his job with the court system wasn’t found there
So he woke up Young Frank and Old Clarkin from bed
And yelled “Let’s screw with young Will and get in his head!”
I’ll give a sweet contract to those who I’ll tap
Put the whole CD office right into their lap!
Don’t listen to gossip the bloggers will chatter,
I’ll cover my ears and nothing will matter.
With jobs that are laden with guaranteed cash
If Will fires them both all his dreams I will dash!
As the hours sped by and the cynics did crow,
All in Fall River wished Ol’ Hamhocks would GO!
Then the lawyers for Will made it quite simply clear,
They would fight the appointments, then there was a cheer!
Fear not the outcome, the decisions won’t stick,
We’ll call up the feds, for they’ll bite off Bob’s D@^K!
For what he has done he will gain such ill fame
He will never be seen out in public again!
It will take DOR to recommend fixin”
All the things he has ruined with his mindless trixin’
No more safe limo rides at his beck and call,
I bet Whipp is the one who’ll cause Ol' Hamhock’s fall.
And no matter whom he calls or what crap he might try
If he’s not very careful his fat butt will fry.
Too close to DiMasi and DeLeo too,
The one who’ll get scalped, Bob, is none other than YOU!
I’m sure little fish squeal, then they’ll have enough proof
And make big fish like you into Fall River DOOFS!
Messer’s Frank and Old Clarkin won’t be around
To save your fat arse when you run aground.
The whole City will cheer your new prison suit
After Fall River voters gave you the big BOOT!
Here’s to hoping your ugly face never comes back
And to all your appointments, we’ll give them the sack!
Let’s try to make this Christmas so very Merry,
As soon as you leave for Club Fed in Danbury!
And to all you have gifted good jobs with a bow
They will be pestered, I’m sure, ‘till they go!
Other workers will watch them from up and beneath
And write it all down while hard clinching their teeth
For you see, they had cuts in their pay, less food in their belly,
And your raises and income caused a stink truly smelly.
You received those promotions from the world’s largest elf,
And the only one smiling is big Grinch himself
Maybe next in the line is his girlfriend at Ed.
If the MCAS don’t rise you’ll hear “Off with her head!”
And the Finance Director/Treasurer jerk
Is less competent than a bills payables clerk!
That leaves Pinocchio boy Chappy, and the lies that he throws
To the City Council he speaks, see the growth of his nose!
Poor Ken Fiola, if he was a steak, he’d be useless gristle
Let’s jettison him on an old Nike missile!
And once we have done this with all our might,
We say, “Merry Christmas to All, And to All a GOODNIGHT!

To The Gallant Few....Thank You and A Very Merry, Safe Christmas

To our Brothers and Sisters in United States Armed Forces serving oversees in Afghanistan and Iraq, and all over the globe, and to those here at home, a very special Christmas wish of a Safe and Happy Holiday! Many Thanks! And May God Bless You...Here's to your safe return to families and loved ones as soon as possible!

YOU ARE NOT FORGOTTEN!

My "ID" Made Me Do It! No Kidding !

Correia locks in Santos, Edwards with contracts.
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By Michael Holtzman
Herald News Staff Reporter
Posted Dec 23, 2009 @ 09:06 PM
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FALL RIVER — " Mayor Robert Correia, two weeks before leaving office, rewarded his two longest-serving staffers with three-year binding contracts and five weeks of vacation at their recently appointed Community Development Agency jobs.
Similar contracts for Jeffrey Santos and Kathleen Edwards read: “If for any reason, the city wishes to terminate this agreement for convenience, then employer shall pay out to employee the outstanding cash value of the remainder of the agreement plus any accrued vacation time, sick leave and/or personal days.”
Mayor-elect Will Flanagan vowed Wednesday to “take corrective action,” saying, “My hope is that these contracts will be null and void. … I cannot think of any time in recent history where such an action was taken.”
Correia is leaving elected office Jan. 4 after one mayoral term and 30 years as a state representative."

***

"According to Freud, we are born with our Id. The id is an important part of our personality because as newborns, it allows us to get our basic needs met. Freud believed that the id is based on our pleasure principle. In other words, the id wants whatever feels good at the time, with no consideration for the reality of the situation. When a child is hungry, the id wants food, and therefore the child cries. When the child needs to be changed, the id cries. When the child is uncomfortable, in pain, too hot, too cold, or just wants attention, the id speaks up until his or her needs are met."

***

“It is a tale … full of sound and fury; signifying nothing.” (Macbeth)

Well, he's finally done it. I had no doubt he would. But you have to wonder about this man who claims to love this City so much but seems to be working overtime to destroy as much of it as he can in the short time from his laughable loss in the mayoral primary election until now, a mere two weeks before the new mayor takes the oath of office.

 This man Correia is nothing but an "ID" with a pair of shoes, a man who cares only for his agenda, his personal wants and desires, and gives less than short shrift to the needs or concerns of others, particularly to those of the City he claims to love. And this quite feral being has made the two people awarded these unjustifiable contracts, Mr Santos and Ms. Edwards - who forever will now be known as "the other one" - the two most despised people in Fall River, aside from  Correia himself, of course. Are you surprised by this? Really? Has anything he has done during the last two years NOT made it clear he was quite capable of this kind of folly? The original feral man , this guy Correia is, indeed.

This person cannot accept his rejection by the voters of Fall River. We are witnessing a meltdown of monumental proportions. Correia is not acting like a spoiled brat, but like a combination of animal that must mark it's territory and a petulant, hurt teenager, planning revenge for revenge itself , like he's NOT a fully conscious being, somewhat deranged and oblivious, possessed by an unstoppable drive or need. Right now, Correia is dangerous to the public and financial safety of the City of Fall River because of these blind impulses. Like I said, an "ID" with shoes! Prove to me I'm wrong! I don't think you can. I wish I was. Desperate men are always the most dangerous.

Sure, there are legal considerations. Mayor Flanagan and his team will look at the law and find out if there are any grounds with which to reverse these contracts. Then there is the lack of qualifications of Mr. Santos. He may be a nice guy (I hear otherwise), but it appears his sole qualification might be the fact he's had to endure Mr. "ID" for 30 years and fetch his coffee. That doesn't get you a $90K yearly salary - it gets you a job as a nurse's assitant cleaning bedpans! Sorry, but that's the truth. From what I hear, it's Ms. Edwards that might more closely warrant the extraordinary combining of two positions to make one salary, something I'm sure the Mayor's legal people will research in conjunction with federal officials. Trust me, the benefit of the doubt always goes to the guy in office, not the guy who just left office and made a Tammany Hall type Hack Hire (is that redundant?) on his petulant way out the door.

There are ways the new Mayor could try to aliviate this problem of late minute hires of unqualified people to open and/or created  jobs. First, they could challange any appointments made without the benefit of proper internal job postings and advertiseing. If these jobs are in the regular City Budget for FY10, he could simply create a new job, write specific qualifications for that job the folks appointed by Correia do not possess, get that approved by the City Council, fund it, and red line the jobs in question out of existence. That would mean unemployment expense, but at least you are providing the system with a necessary enema of sorts. In any event, Correia placing these people in jobs WILL cost this City money it does not have, especially the contract backed jobs. If they were contracts based on the general fund City budget, all contracts are subject to funding, so Flanagan could legally remove the funding for those contracts by zero-ing out the line items in which the money exists. So there is some leeway, but like I said, it's going to cost the City money. Then you have to look at the upset fighting these appointments will cause your new administration. This is simply something the Mayor Flanagan does not need to face. And everyone knows Correia is doing this on purpose.

 Only the most devoted, droid-like followers of Correia have the shame to speak in favor of these contracts. They are an abomination to the City, and a clear example of precisely what caused his drubbing in the primary. I feel sorry for the two people involved in these jobs. I imagine they will be pariahs in City Hall, always under watchful eye and persecution. But this is part of the devil's pact for which they so willingly bargained.

I also understand, having worked in government for many, many years, the outgoing chief elected official likes to make these kind of appointments of unqulaified people to make the incoming offical in charge look bad by comparison. These unjustified appointments by "ID" man Correia take this to a new, costly and pernicious level.

As THE GREAT DESTROYER CORREIA goes to the Court Administrative Chief Justice to beg for a large salary job for one year and no heavy lifting, which they will probably grant him for past considerations, he seems to refuse to leave the scene, especially with these last two contract appointments.  See kids, don't be like this guy once you are the object of rejection. Learn to loose gracefully, and not act like some zombie cretin obsessed with getting even at all costs, including what little of your reputation you still have left. Maybe we should start calling him "THE THING THAT WOULDN'T LEAVE", like the John Belushi character from that memorable Saturday Night Live episode. Everytime he does something else, we can all shriek in terror like Jane Curtin.

In the end, he will finally be gone,  quite sooner than you and I can imagine right now. So will  every trace of his decrepit and festering adminsitration. All who helped him run his despotic regime, despotic in the way only such an "ID" driven man could possibly create, full of bold faced agression and reactionary paranoia, must be also be held accountable for what has transpired. If you helped Correia in any fashion, if you created and carried out his directives, you are guilty and should no longer work for this City or it's citizens. But, again, over time what he has done will fade away like so many winter shadows. Sometime this spring it will be as if he never existed. The bully's voice will cease to echo. And Correia's tale will be..." full of sound and fury - signifying NOTHING!"

Some Will Never Believe

Poland tightens border in hunt for Auschwitz sign
By VANESSA GERA and MONIKA SCISLOWSKA, Associated Press Writers

Saturday, December 19, 2009
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(12-19) 11:10 PST OSWIECIM, Poland (AP) --

Polish authorities stepped up security checks at airports and border crossings and searched scrap metal yards Saturday as the search intensified for the infamous Nazi sign stolen from the Auschwitz death camp memorial.

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The brazen pre-dawn theft Friday of one of the Holocaust's most chilling and notorious symbols sparked outrage from around the world, and Polish leaders have declared recovering the 5-meter (16-foot) sign a national priority.

The sign bearing the German words "Arbeit Macht Frei" — "work makes you free" — spanned the main entrance to the Auschwitz death camp, where more than 1 million people, mostly Jews, were killed during World War II.

The grim Nazi slogan was so counter to the actual function of the camp that it has been etched into history. The phrase "Arbeit Macht Frei" appeared at the entrances of other Nazi camps, including Dachau and Sachsenhausen, but the long curving sign at Auschwitz was the best known.


Police deployed 50 officers, including 20 detectives, and a search dog to the Auschwitz grounds, where barracks, watchtowers and rows of barbed wire stand as testament to the atrocities of Nazi Germany.

Spokeswoman Katarzyna Padlo said police had questioned all security guards at the site and searched local scrap metal businesses, while Dariusz Nowak, a police spokesman in Krakow, said investigators were working around the clock on the case.

The director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau memorial museum, visibly shaken by the dramatic theft, told The Associated Press he believes the theft was carried out by professionals.

"I think it was done by specialists," Piotr Cywinski said. "It was a very well-prepared action."
British historian Andrew Roberts said the sign would generate huge interest on the burgeoning market for Nazi memorabilia.

Irony. Yes, I admit a lifelong cynic like myself has a great love of irony when it comes to certain situations, most often in matters of politics. It usually provides an opportunity for a bit of insight into my own heart at times as much as anyone else's. In the final analysis, how it impacts the person themselves is the only valid indicator of anything, for who really can ever look into the heart of other people other than by what they do.

Today is the last day of Chanukah, the "Jewish Festival of Lights".  "It celebrates the triumph of light over darkness, of purity over adulteration, of spirituality over materiality."  It is a sad, yet predictable, sort of irony that we must feel today , as a collection of sick and sad human beings chose this time of year, which cannot be a simple cooincidence, to steal the most vile symbol of man's inhumanity to his fellow man than the "Arbeit Macht Frei" — "work makes you free" sign that was the first thing you would have seen if you passed through the front gates of the Nazi concentration death camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau, where 1.1 million of the 6 million Jews murdered by the Nazi's died. It was designed to be the principal Nazi killing center to achieve the "final solution", and it did it's work with deadly efficiency, making it the death camp with the single highest total.

The saying itself is a bit of satan inspired devious irony. "Work will set you free, or, "work frees one" is a hedious testament to the dehumanizing hatred troubled people can inflict on others with no rhyme or reason other than fear or jealousy or needing someone to blame for their own diffculties or failures. Yes, you'd be free once they worked you to death, or shot you to death, or you died from exposure or sickness, or malnutrition, or because you might be the subject of a medical experiment, or just because some guard had a bad day, or just for sport.

No, this was no accident, this theft. Whether done by right-wing loving poachers, or the ever growing legion of  those who want the world to  believe the Holocost never happened, this was clearly well planned and the timing was not accidental.

I cannot imagine the horrors of this camp, or the special camps like them. My father, as I've written here before, spent almost six months in a German POW camp, and when asked what he would have done differently when captured, he said he would have rather been shot to death than ever have to go to another POW camp. And in comparison to the death camps, what he went through was a brutal experience not devoid of all hope. I know that dehumanizing experience ended up killing him years later. So, no, I cannot fully grasp the level of concentrated hatred  at these death camps handed out like a leaflet on a street corner.

Maybe a review of what the death camp looked like might make us all think long and hard about what happened over 65 plus years ago. Let us also try to consider the societal brutallity dished out to this people solely on the basis of their religion for a over a full decade prior to construction of death camps, and for generations before WWII, and since it's end. Imagine being sent to a death camp because  someone in your family tree had been Jewish, that you carried "Jewish" blood in your veins. Such insanity was the province of the most educated and legally trained minds in all of Germany, who before the Nazi rise to power were considered by collegues as leading figures in Law, Industry, Medicine and scientific research around the world by their peers. It can happen again. It can.

 Again, this is the main gate to Auschwitz -Birkenau death camp

This is the view of the back of the front gate

A view of the brick barracks after entering the front gate.

The universally recognized prison garb of death camp victims. It is difficult to view, and gives but a hint of what it must have been like while the camp was full and working to it's maximum just before the liberation of the camp in January of 1945 by the Russian Army

A "No-Man's Land" in the death camp... an immediate death sentence to enter in a camp full of nothing but death. The fences were electrified and guarded by machine gun towers.

This is the "Execution Wall". Only God knows how many prisoners were lined up against it and mudered for any reason the guards and commanders picked.

A cremetorium at Auschwitz-Birkenau. This one had been an armaments storage bunker for the Polish Army.

Simply look......and believe

Where the trains brought innocent  human cargo

Wooden barracks for the prisoners

Camp toilet facilities

Daily roll call

What the location in the last picture looks like today at Auschwitz-Birkenau

Same field and area as they appear today

Actual photo of selection to work or be gassed. This decision was often as arbitrary as the temperature that day. The line at the top , right,  are those awaiting their final fate in the gas chambers.

Inside the wooden barracks. Those on the bottoms had the greatest chance of death due to the cold and rats.

One of the gas chambers destroyed by the attack to liberate the death camp

I firmly believe the theft of the "Work" sign was not accidental. The timing is far too suspicious for any reasonable people to think otherwise. You see, there will always be people, for whatever reason, and they are ususally very evil reasons, that will NEVER let themselves believe that human kind is capable of such brutality, such concentrated hatred and murder on a mass scale. Think again. It did happen. It has happened to the Jews , in particular, and others as well, many, many times before. It has happened many times since the end of WWII. Pol Pot. Sadam Hussien, Al Queda, My Lai, Ethiopia and the Congo. Yes, it can happen again. So while this may seem out of place for the Holiday Season, on this the last day of Chanukah, it serves an important purpose.

That is, to remind us to strive everyday, in what we do, what we say and even what we think, to remember our fellow traveller on this earth with kindness and understanding, regardless of faith you may or may not hold or which they might practice. We are all one. No simple contrived excuses, like the amont of some race's or people's blood flowing  through our veins should ever be used to qualify a person in any way, for any reason The fact that it continues to be should make us see a reminder is often the only way we will remember.

To the Rabbi and his lovely wife and children who live in Neeham, I say thank you  and wish you and yours a wonderful, peaceful and happy Holiday Season...Happy Chanukah!!!!!

For those of us who do not share the Jewish faith, I found this explanation of the meaning and traditions of Chanukah :

Chanukah in a Nutshell

Chanukah -- the eight-day festival of light that begins on the eve of Kislev 25 -- celebrates the triumph of light over darkness, of purity over adulteration, of spirituality over materiality.

More than twenty-one centuries ago, the Holy Land was ruled by the Seleucids (Syrian-Greeks), who sought to forcefully Hellenize the people of Israel. Against all odds, a small band of faithful Jews defeated one of the mightiest armies on earth, drove the Greeks from the land, reclaimed the Holy Temple in Jerusalem and rededicated it to the service of G-d.

When they sought to light the Temple's menorah, they found only a single cruse of olive oil that had escaped contamination by the Greeks; miraculously, the one-day supply burned for eight days, until new oil could be prepared under conditions of ritual purity.

To commemorate and publicize these miracles, the sages instituted the festival of Chanukah. At the heart of the festival is the nightly menorah lighting: a single flame on the first night, two on the second evening, and so on till the eighth night of Chanukah, when all eight lights are kindled.

On Chanukah we also recite Hallel and the Al HaNissim prayer to offer praise and thanksgiving to G-d for "delivering the strong into the hands of the weak, the many into the hands of the few... the wicked into the hands of the righteous.


Chanukah customs include eating foods fried in oil -- latkes (potato pancakes) and sufganiot (doughnuts); playing with the dreidel (a spinning top on which are inscribed the Hebrew letters nun, gimmel, hei and shin, an acronym for Nes Gadol Hayah Sham, "a great miracle happened there"); and the giving of Chanukah gelt, gifts of money, to children.

Happy Holidays !!