Of Gold Teeth and Imbeciles

17-year-old woman suspected in bank robberies
---------------
As Appearing in Boston Herald:
By Brian Fraga / New Bedford Standard Times
Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - Updated 42m ago
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NEW BEDFORD — A district court judge ordered bail today for two suspects in a recent string of bank robberies.
Kristopher Santillo, 21, of New Bedford, was held on $20,000 cash bail while Caitlin Ingham, 17, of Freetown, was held on $3,500 cash bail.

Police traced both suspects Monday to a room at the Dartmouth Motor Inn. Both were wanted on unarmed robbery charges stemming from heists in New Bedford, Dartmouth and Acushnet where they allegedly slipped notes to bank tellers demanding money.

During today’s arraignment at New Bedford District Court, prosecutors said both suspects admitted to robbing the banks. Witnesses identified them from photo arrays and from seeing their pictures in media reports.

Prosecutors said Santillo admitted to friends that he stole $5,000 from the Acushnet Federal Credit Union on Feb. 6. He reportedly posted pictures of himself flashing money on his MySpace [website] page, prosecutors said.

However, defense attorney Colleen Tynan said other witnesses gave conflicting descriptions of the suspect, and added that some witnesses identified other people. She said police did not find any money when they searched his New Bedford residence.

Complete coverage at the New Bedford Standard Times.

Parents, this picture is the best possible testimony for being extra watchful of your children, how they are doing in school, who they hang around with, and wether or not enough in being done in school AND in the home to educate your children about the dangers of drug abuse!

How do I know there is a question of drug abuse? Unless you've been living under a big whopping huge rock for, say, the last 20 years or so, you can instantly identify the reason why a 21 year old with a lower jaw full of gold teeth trying to look all "gansta'" would attempt three bank robberies in a short period of time and involve his 17 year old "old lady" as well. A sum of $5,000 for two drug addicts, probably for heroin and cocaine, would be gone is an extremely short period of time, less than a week at most. And the last photo of the pair in court (above) shows the tell tale signs of a young woman in the midst of withdrawal, not simply tears, real or for effect.

It's when I look again at the first photo attached to this story (right) and, as a parent of a teenage daughter at college, think of this genius smiling for the camera displaying his gold lower jaw, his character and intelligence for all the honest world to see I thank the Good Lord above she has never brought anything like this fool home. And if it's your kid running around looking like this and doing things like he did, they should put YOU in jail for raising such a hoodlum. Because THAT doesn't happen by accident.

 I look at the contrast in the photo and it scares me. I'm not unaware of the ways young ladies can be  just as capable of bad behavior that is entirely of their own making and decisions. I'm not blaming IdiotBoyClownFace for that at all. It's just I have to rethink that whole not wanting a gun in my house thing all over again.

Dudes....if you look like this imbecillic moron with a gold laden lower jaw, skanky looking body art covering your scrawny windpipe and hair that looks like a golden retriever with his head out a window in a moving vehicle on Rt. 495, I don't care if you are in Medical School, just try to date my daughter and you'll get the business end of a buggy whip! And in a more serious vein, there is no earthly excuse for any parent to allow such a young man to walk this earth full of these very obvious problems, nor a young lady to keep the company of such a young man, without someone doing something to stop it long ago. These problems crop up years before the point that young people are robbing banks.

And now I have to kick myself, hard,  for channeling my parents!

What Does Panic Smell Like?

Pumping station upgrade is 'long overdue'

Jack Foley, Hearald News.
The Braga Bridge flies over
the Central Street Pump Station.

---------------
By Michael Holtzman
Herald News Staff Reporter
Posted Feb 19, 2010 @ 08:36 PM
Last update Feb 20, 2010 @ 06:40 AM
---------------
FALL RIVER — Federal stimulus funds will save the city nearly $1.2 million for two long-needed drinking water projects to paint water towers and replace water mains, officials said.
They’re part of continued drinking water upgrades dubbed a decade ago the “42-7” project — 42 miles in seven years, replacing water lines dating to the 19th century.


Because of high bidding, however, the city did not submit an application to help fund its latest combined sewer overflow project: rehabilitation of the circa 1952 Central Street pump station that malfunctioned Wednesday and dumped 2.5 million gallons of raw sewage into Mount Hope Bay near Battleship Cove.
That problem of the automated pumps not turning on was rectified and remains closely monitored, Administrator of Public Utilities Terrance Sullivan reported.
He said a sole bid for the estimated $3.5 million project in December came in just over $5 million, while re-bidding to meet January federal guidelines elicited four bids.


The lowest, by Zoppo Corp. in Boston, was $4.6 million, more than $1 million above department estimates, Sullivan said.


He plans to re-bid the work in about three months, again seeking more competitive pricing.


Sullivan said he’d estimated the expected American Recovery and Reinvestment Act clean water forgiveness grants would be 9 percent, based upon state and federal officials’ projections.


That would have saved the city slightly more than $300,000, based upon $3.5 million to update the CSO pump station that was last rehabilitated in 1978. Specifications list it as a 540-day project to rehab one of the city’s largest pump stations located under the Braga Bridge.
“It’s long overdue,” Sullivan said.

The final AARA funding for clean water contracts awarded offsets 11.7 percent of principal costs, while delivering drinking water grants at 20 percent of costs, according to the office of state Treasurer Timothy P. Cahill.


The state, through its Water Pollution Abatement Trust chaired by Cahill, announced 115 local awards totaling $185 million, which includes local drinking ($50.1 million) and wastewater ($127.7 million) projects.
If the city awarded Zoppo Corp.’s $4.6, million bid by the Jan. 15 deadline, it could have been eligible for about $538,000 in AARA clean water forgiveness funding, Sullivan said.

“I would have liked to have signed the contracts by Jan. 15, but the bids were so high and so we’re not getting the money in this round,” Sullivan said. “As much as I want the grant money, it didn’t make logical sense.”
He said state Department of Environmental Protection officials said additional jobs bill funding could be available in a subsequent round.

“Nothing’s assured,” he said. “Certainly, if it does come in, we will apply and try to access that money.”
He said the two drinking water grants provides funding as follows:


— Phase 8 water project, $671,291 in ARRA grants on a $3.3 million state revolving no-interest loan. The project includes painting/rehabbing two Bedford Street water storage tanks on Bedford Street built in 1938 and 1945 and last painted in the 1970s; also, remaining replacement completion of water mains on Hathaway and Taylor streets this spring, following work on Hanover, June, Otis and part of Weetamoe streets.

— Phase 9 water project, $519,194 in ARRA grants on a $2.6 million state revolving no-interest loan. The project, to be done in 2010-2011, includes painting/rehabbing Haskell Street water storage tank and replacing mains on streets that include Linden, Broad and part of Rock. Contracts were awarded to Cn Corp. of Fall River for water main work and to JPI Painting Inc. in Ohio.

The $1.2 million principal forgiveness grants should begin to reduce the water department’s $2.1 million debt service in fiscal year 2011 and 2012, Sullivan said.


In its ninth year, Sullivan estimated the 42-7 project was responsible for 55 miles of water main replacements and related rehabilitation work totaling $45 million.
E-mail Michael Holtzman at mholtzman@heraldnews.com.


First of all, this story shows everything sad and sorry about the way this City is being run today, and during the last 30 years or so. And I am sorry to say that unless I read  in next week's Happy News and Feckless Reporting Emporium, the Herald News (HN), that Mayor Flanagan has fired Mr. Sullivan and Chappy Chapstick for continued poor capital acquistion and related financial planning for this community,  I must withdraw support for his mayoralty even before the completion of the 3 full month mark I cited last year. I'm sure that won't make him loose any sleep at all, because a man who can garner 11,000 plus votes has more than just the right-wing and teabagger zealots on the comments section of the HN giving him support.The number of avid Flanagan fans are dwindling, however, as the mistakes pile up art record pace, and that's saying quite a bit for Fall River! But my hypocracy  only goes so far, ladies and gentlemen. I think I've seen enough to know which direction this one is heading.

At the outset let me state the the HN has outdone itself in terms of muddled story writing and and unclear reportage' of simple and relevant facts. If you knew nothing about the breakdown of the pumping station this week that dumped 2.5 million gallons of human effluent and other raw sewerage into the Mount Hope Bay, you could not possibly have understood what really happened, or that this collection of seemingly unrelated factoids (because they are not facts, mostly self serving leading statements about "impressions" or 'estimates") is merely a  CYA story for this man Sullivan, the Sewer Commission, and Mayor Flanagan, to make it appear they have everything in hand. Alas, even the most casual observer of Fall River politics can easily see what they have in their hands is the brown stuff floating into Mount Hope Bay thanks to the crew of dauntless donothings that have run this community for over 30 years and continue to do so. The entire story smells like a sitting City government in complete panic. Now those are what I consider to be the most pertinent facts of this story!

Chappy and Sullivan have developed the art of poor capital item acquisition, long term debt and financial planning into a pure science of incompetence. This is not the first time they have joined forces to screw things up. The old Tresurer was on the last pitious failure party boat and took one for the this team of rogues. Now, since literally no one else in the City administration has the expertise to complete complex financial planning, both must answer for this mess (no pun intended). And before we go any further, why would anyone believe what these two documented LIARS says's about anything anyways? Mayor Flanagan, since you kept these two fools on board when you had the chance to keep them from screwing things up yet again, this mess is all YOURS!

What a joke. Am I suppossed to be impressed by the listing of upcoming CSO project phases , heavy on "might be's" and not on "we know how to do it right, THIS TIME". Hasn't anyone ever thought of putting sufficient lead time into planning these bids so that additional bids can be completed in a timely manner if there's a problem. ANY problem? I mean, this IS Fall River, the home of unexpected screw-ups and CYA explanations that typically never include the names of those ACTUALLY responsible!

What DOES stick out like sore thumbs are these two very telling items that go directly to point about this new administration being just like all the rest:

"Phase 8 water project, $671,291 in ARRA grants on a $3.3 million state revolving no-interest loan"

and,

"Phase 9 water project, $519,194 in ARRA grants on a $2.6 million state revolving no-interest loan"

Well....what do you know? If this was NBC's Law and Order, the prosecutors would now be saying to the Judge "Your honor, Mr. Sullivan opened the door, so we may now ask questions about this issue of the defendant". Whats the issue, you ask?

Well, when Mayor Flanagan was running for mayor, he claimed the cost of debt service could be vastly reduced by re-bonding the entire project with lower interest rates, resulting in lower sewer fees. This was piggy-backed on the issue of the very poorly written "Legal Opinion" about the CSO fee being an illegal tax. However, did he not understand there is no interest rate lower than ZERO! I mean, Mr. Mayor, you're an attorney, but you can't be THAT dumb, can you?

This means only one of two things is likely to be the case, and no other resonable conclusions can be reached. One, that Mayor Flanagan and his team never asked anyone in the know what the debt service profile was for the existing and proposed long term debt for the project, yet made direct statements that lead every voter to believe otherwise. Or, that he knew very well what the debt profile for the project was, and lied about it anyway. Neither is very palatable behavior from someone whose campaign mantra was transparency and the end of business as usual. Either he failed to complete his due diligence on the project or he lied. Both possibilities are downright UGLY.

I stated in an article yesterday that even the best people with every good intention often turn sociopath when it comes to getting elected and staying in office. I think we are seeing this soft tragedy playing out again. It's too bad. I thought this guy might be different. I guess we cannot check their motives for them...only they can.

Politicians as Sociopaths

Mark Morford - Notes & Errata Archive

All politicians are
 madhouse freaks
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Friday, February 19, 2010
---------------------------------------------------
Is that headline overstating things just a little? Do you think I am perhaps engaging in a small amount of hyperbole to draw in your jaded eyeballs and make an otherwise obvious point? You might be right. Then again, perhaps you are not.

Fact is, I think you sort of agree. I think you understand it's not really that far from the absolute truth; all politicians really are freaks, completely and down to the very bone. They are freaks not merely because they must be so in order to be drawn to such a heartless, ruthless, bizarre, meat-sucking, powermad soul-death of a slime-laden profession in the first place, but because -- no, wait, that's about it. That's the reason.


Moderate Democrat Evan Bayh is leaving the Senate. Did you hear? His announcement of not being at all interested in licking Congress' malicious bootheels anymore is now causing quite the uproar, largely because Bayh is youngish and handsome and smart and well-connected; he was one of Obama's top-tier choices for VP, and he seemed ideally groomed for bigger and better things in the political sphere.


Why the hell would he give all that up, the power and prestige, the fame and the acclaim, the hookers and the nubile pages, the Cuban cigars and the kickbacks? Is some sort of scandal looming? Drug addiction, perhaps? Did he have sex with Tiger Woods? I mean, powerful, connected, well-liked guys like that don't just leave. Do they?


His answer is ridiculously simple and, if true, makes all sorts of depressing sense. Bayh says he is not running for re-election because Congress has become far too acidic, poisonous, "brain-dead partisan," ineffectual, useless, mean-spirited and polarized. Nothing gets done. There is no discussion, no more middle ground. There is no working together to solve anything, for anyone, at any time. Same as it ever was? Well, yes. Only now, far more so.

There was a poll, a fairly significant one but also fairly plain, saying things you already suspected but perhaps hoped were getting better, even though you suspect they are not.


Part of what this poll revealed is that a mere eight percent of Americans want the current members of Congress to be re-elected. Which appears to be another way of saying a whopping 92 percent of the country wants Congress gone. All of them, each and every one. Because, as noted, nearly all of them are ruthless schizoid madhouse freaks. And not in the good way.
Is that not startling? Is that not amazing, our near-unanimous abhorrence of our own government, of the people we the people put in power to lead us?


I already know your answer: nope, not surprising at all. You might then rightly ask, are we alone in this? Is there a populace anywhere in the world that deeply loves its elected leaders, one that's proud of and happy with a majority of its officials?


Answer: sort of. Sure, hating politics is damn near universal, and appears to be second only to expecting them to be good and decent and get everything done for us. Then again, the U.S. is down near the bottom insofar as believing our leaders have our best interests at heart at any given moment. First-world power and influence, third-world corruption and mistrust.


Bayh echoed that selfsame poll when he suggested the only way to "fix" Congress might be to vote all the jackals, special interest shills and fringe nutballs out of both parties, and then vote in an entirely new cadre of untainted humans, real reformers, people who know how to work together and make things happen, sans the bickering and acid and hookers and handouts.


You can see the problem right there. Who the hell might that be, exactly? Where do we find people like that? Do they even exist? Have we not already established the fact that American politics, as it is now designed, largely draws freaks and gladhanders, shysters and fools?


One of the ways to make politics appeal to fair-thinking, good-souled, college-educated intellects would be to start with something even mildly radical -- like, say, campaign finance reform, perhaps disallowing vicious corporations to buy and sell a given candidate like a brainless toy. Yes, that might help. Hello, Supreme Court? Here is your giant middle finger. Love, America.


Let me be clear: Well do I know there are a handful of very smart and very well-intentioned politicians -- mostly local, some state -- who get into it for a genuine love of people and community, and because they truly want to make their town, their schools, the world a better place.
Of course, it seems they don't last long. They get sucked into the guts of the machine, and their ideas get filleted, and their families and personal lives are destroyed by a billion slings and arrows from outrageous bloggers and Fox News imbeciles, and in order to survive at any length and be reasonably effective, they and their souls get slowly eaten alive by angry gnats.


Which brings us, naturally, to President Obama, quite possibly the least freakish, slippery, pre-devoured politician to ever grace the Oval Office -- which, in truth, sort of baffled everyone, in the beginning. "What the hell is a smart, attuned, deeply intelligent, meta-calm community organizer dude doing wanting to run the country, in that ocean of snakes?" millions of us who voted for him asked in wondrous, mystical disbelief. "How long can such a person possibly last in that rare, impossible state of utopian goodness before being sucked into the hate-filled congressional vortex?" we added, fearfully.


Answer: not long, apparently. To be sure, Obama went in with a rather astonishing set of credentials as a masterful uniter, a capable compromiser, someone who could find the intelligent middle ground in a hurricane. This, to many of us, was the real change he would bring to Congress -- not wild organic liberalism and peacenik silliness, but more of a simple, calm, effective reversal of the utterly vile, hyper-polarized, we-hate-everything extremism that Bush so disgustingly embodied.

(Oh btw, the Bush family? Total freaks. So cloistered, inbred and twitchy, they were perhaps freaks of the worst kind: freaks of the mundane and the mediocre, the violent and the low. But you already knew that.)

But now it feels that even Obama, quite simply the best president we on the left can possibly hope for in terms of intelligence, subtle thinking, nuanced understanding of the more progressive issues of the day, a man who dazzled the hell out of both parties when he walked in, appears to be stunned by just how deeply he's been dipped in the toxic acid bath that is the United States Congress.

All of which can lead you to an utterly depressing, defeatist view of America, wherein you might say the worst affliction we suffer isn't the horrible economy, job losses, botched health care reform, war, housing collapse or Hannah Montana. Rather, it's a snarling, hydra-headed government led by fundamentalist tea-party fringe nutballs from the right and weak-kneed whiners from the left, full of sound and fury, inspiring absolutely nothing. Or is that overstating things just a little


I don't know about you, but I for one am sick and tried of hearing the same safe pap from the same old crew of local politicians regardless of what southcoast community they represent or from where they come. A tired, lifeless and old collection of politicians who make promises then do the opposite as if no one will remember what was promised or who are clearly so incompetent they cannot get out of their own way from jump street. Local politicians who take for granted the quiet disgust of constituents whose voices they can hardly stand to hear.

I'm sorry ladies and gentlemen, these bed sores as human beings are able to get away with this because YOU do not make them perform at a much higher level. You have to dig and ask questions and become more knowledgable about issues and not just assumme that because you've always voted for this idiot or that crackpot, especially in Fall River, that everything will be O.K., that the sky hasn't fallen down yet but they say it will every year. That only means these leeches have trained you well. YOU THINK YOU ARE WORTHLESS, AND SO YOU MAKE YOURSELVES SO, EASILY MANIPULATED AND ABUSED BY THESE MINOR LEAGUE WARTS ON THE LOG OF LIFE. You should feel ashamed. YOU SHOULD FEEL ASHAMED!

Do something about it! Don't just melt back into your easy chairs or take the dog for a walk for an extra half hour because you just read the latest happy news from the parrots who report for the Herald News. Get online, research things like CSO fees, and FROED's less than stellar performance over time. Heck, how do you think I do this? INVEST YOUR TIME IN THE THINGS THAT WILL MAKE A REAL DIFFERENCE IN YOUR LIFE, YOUR WALLET OR POCKETBOOK, AND YOUR COMMUNITY. Don't ever again take for granted anything any politician says. IT"S YOUR MONEY, NOT THEIR'S!!!

I have witnessed this phenomena ever since walking into my first job in governement a few months after getting my MBA. No matter how great a person the candidate starts as, I am convinced that  the pressures of fundraising, kissing bums to get desired Legislature Committee assignments and perks, like prime office space or parking spots, and the need to get your name on legislation, WINNING legislation, starts to erode the dignity of a good man or woman and eventually turns them more and more into a real SOCIOPATH. Doing the people's work gets confused with doing the INSTITUTIONS work, even on a body like the City Council, to the point they themselves can no longer easily tell the difference.

These elected officials begin to believe their own press releases, and the cheering crowds and the recognition of citizens who treat them like stars. It turns their heads, as it would any normal person . And that's when it all starts going to hell, as far as constiuents are concerned. That's when elected officials start to think they are  indispensable , and that's when the "24/7 - 365" campaigning starts. It's when people can serve for 30 years and actually DEMAND, as their devine right, a cushy hack job for the requisite three years of "bump up" salary for retirement purposes. We saw this last year.  WE are living through it once again.

IT"S YOUR MONEY!!!  For a City full of people who continually complain about how broke they are, the citizens of Fall River apparently don't mind being stolen from hand over fist. First by the collection of hack retreads and "good old boys" on the City's various boards who do the bidding of the big developers, in and out of the area, then the banks, and finally a phalanx of thieving attorneys that have run of the streets of Fall River like the filthy cockroaches they have proven themselves to be. Of course , they do their best work away from the prying light, always hidden from public view , plying their ignoble trade in private enclaves and cracks in the basement of their own consciences. That is the collection of anti-citizen players your elected officials have taken to running with these days. And it's getting worse with every election that goes by.

 All you have to do is check on the bank balances of those currently in office and that will tell the tale. ANY candidate with well over $100,000 in their campaign fund right now is, quite frankly, over-doing it a bit. Or, they have been bought  in advance by people who do NOT have your best interest at heart!. That's a definite truth. And I think you know it's true as well.

Do not fall for the same old same old yet again. Every elected official must be approved  each election by an ever questioning, intelligent population demanding the highest possible performance and response from these temporary employees we hire. They don't need a great no show job for three years high pay for serving for 30 years! I can personally guarentee you that in this day and age, in regards to the MA legislature, that only members of the clergy serving as reps and senators haven't made a bundle off the books in terms of magic money from "friends" with "gifts", or using funds meant for campaigns for "transportation"or get togethers "for staff" at very pricey restaurants, and God only knows what else they allow in the laws written by them to limit what THEY can do.(HA!) That doesn't even count the probable kickbacks they get from all those other hacks and family members they have placed on public payrolls in other districts so no one will notice, or so they hope!

End this never ending abuse OF YOUR MONEY!!! Only vote for new candidates in upcoming elections. Educate yourself. Demand excellence, accountability and real transparency. Make them make sure that every penny of your money counts, and is counted. It's time to end this madness. Unfortunately, these bugs aren't like Cicadas, locust-like insects that only pop up every 17 years. No, our current crop of elected officials are like fruit flies, the kind that hitch a ride into your house on your banana stems. They are free riders and useless. Time to swat them all away!

Failure As Learned Behavior

Ok, Fall River voters..... which of these rules

 has YOUR favorite elected official(s)

followed faithfully since being sworn in?!

"SNAFU" or "FUBAR" or BOTH ? ... YOU DECIDE !

Architectural Designs by Inspector Clouseau

Not quite "Up the Down Staircase" is it?

" Well...I didn't REALLY want to go anyway! "

Designed by Sanvador Dali

I was going to complain about no railings but......

" Short people got NO REASON TO LIVE ........ "

Spiderman's Lanai

" Leavin' On a Midnight Train to Georgia "

Excessive multitasking if you ask me!

There is no way to trace the Russian Mafia

Bank drivethrough for Greyhound Bus Drivers

Senator Larry Craig Memorial Urinal in the

men’s restroom at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

The Angry Vengeance of the Revenue Shortfall

Town asked to dip into reserves
 to avoid teacher layoffs
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By Grant Welker
Herald News Staff Reporter
Posted Feb 12, 2010 @ 09:09 PM
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WESTPORT — Hundreds of school supporters have signed a petition to hold a Special Town Meeting, with hopes of winning approval to take money from reserves and save jobs.
Layoff notices were sent to school workers on Friday, cutting the equivalent of 14 or 15 full-time positions in response to a deficit of about $150,000. Superintendent Carlos Colley said layoffs were necessary after the Finance Committee recommended against taking from reserves.

“We saw this as our only option to prevent layoffs from happening,” said Karen Powell, a co-chair of the group Westport Cares, who helped circulate the petition.
Once Town Hall confirms that at least 200 signatures are by registered voters, the Board of Selectmen must schedule a Special Town Meeting within 45 days. A warrant for the meeting must be posted 14 days beforehand. If selectmen approve the Special Town Meeting at their next meeting, Feb. 22, the meeting could be held between the second week of March and early April.
The layoffs are to go into effect March 15. The layoffs eliminate three elementary school teachers, two middle school teachers, the high school guidance director, campus supervisors at the middle and high schools, and a teacher assistant at the high school.
Also cut are junior varsity sports at the high school and all middle school sports. Athletic Director Gail Silvia, elementary school Assistant Principal Julianna Pasetto and a nurse will have their work hours reduced by one day a week.
The layoffs would be rescinded if a vote passes to take from reserves before March 15, said Colley, who wrote to selectmen urging them to schedule the meeting before that date.
The annual Town Meeting, which already includes a question of whether to take from the stabilization fund to cover the school deficit, is scheduled for May 4. The petition submitted Friday calls for a Special Town Meeting question to take as much as $150,000 from the fund for the school budget.
Parents, students and other supporters have rallied around Colley and the School Committee as the schools seek approval to take from reserves for this fiscal year and to pass a fiscal 2011 budget that increases spending by $1 million, or 6.8 percent. Powell, who has two children in the school system, estimates that around 500 people signed the petition on Thursday alone.
“We got lucky,” Powell said, because basketball games were held that night at the school gyms. “This really aligns people,” she said, talking about the prospect of layoffs.
The superintendent said he wanted to give layoff notices Friday to give workers enough notice before the cuts go into effect. Parents will be able to ask questions and voice concerns after February vacation next week.
E-mail Grant Welker at gwelker@heraldnews.com.

Sorry to see Fall River's  next door neighbor, the Town of Westport, reaching one of those municipal financial crossroads that occurs when the revenue and appropriation lines cross. When they do cross, as they will everywhere in the next fiscal year, Fy11, they do so with a vengeance. I say this because they are about to do something that will lead them down the road to financial chaos and a downward spiral that will make future budget passage go from difficult to hideous in a two year period from this coming April.
 
Rule #1 in public finance is to match regular, recurring operating budget expenses with a reliable, steady stream of matching revenue. Prior to Prop 2 1/2's passage some 30 or so years ago, this regular stream of revenue was solely derived from property taxes. Other local revenue receipts were also available, but prior to 2 1/2 were only a very small percentage of total revenues used to fund local government operating budgets. 
 
With FY11's very sober state aid outlook , with state legislative sources imploring municipalities to plan for level funding, AND NO MORE, for Chap. 70 , or aid to education, and a mimimum 10 % reduction in all other general governement local aid, Westport will be looking at yet another challanging budget process, as will all the communities of the Southcoast region. Yet Westport will consider balancing the current, or FY10, School Department budget by a $150,000 transfer from its Stabilization Fund, which is derived from "one time only" funds and is designed to pay for "one time only" expense items, usually substantial capital items, or paying down debt service on capital items, or as "one time only" paying down of unfunded pension system obligations. It should never be used to fund ongoing general fund operating budgets.
 
Why is this amount of such concern? First, someone needs to start asking why the FY10 School budget is so short. Was it prepared incorrectly, or were revenue estimates off? Whatever procedural issues  might exist must be determined and fixed prior to any additional application of budgeted funds to the School Department.
 

Second, The $150,000 is only to fund School expenses form now until June 30, 2010, the end of FY 10. Let's be polite and say it's an amount to cover half a fiscal year. That means the School Department bottom line needed to be increased by $300,000 to balance, all other things being equal. In other words, not even expanding School services in FY11, the School Department needed and additional $300,000 to brake even for FY10.
 
Third, state aid to education, or Chapter 70 funding, will be no less in Westport in FY11, yet NO MORE,  than it was in FY10. And even though officials in Westport know this, the School Department has put together a request for increased funding of  a million dollars more then budgeted in FY10. I wonder if this request includes the $300,000 shortfall from FY10?
 
Some will say it's an election year and one can expect both the Governor and state legislature will increase local aid across the board before all is done. I'm not so sure when the Governor's FY11 Budget is based on federal funding not yet approved by Congress, and many watchdog groups predicting a Massachusetts revenue shortfall in FY11 of some $3 billion! YIKES!
 
Use of reserve funds are meant for just that, strategic and emergency reserves to meet one time only expenses. Needing to balance any department's operating budget, regardless of department, does not meet that test. It only serves to inflate future operating budgets that have no more monies to pay for them than before  and results in increasing the operating "GAP" bwtween revenues and appropriations. Exacerbating that situation is the very real likelihood that Westport's net general fund operating revenues may well decrease, as will it's ability to increase reserve funds through Free Cash appropriation, due to a decline in general fund 'Unreserved Fund Balance".
 
If the citizens of Westport want to increase School Department funding, which is a completely noble and laudable goal and community priority, the best way to accomplish this would be to pass a School Department operating budget Override. This would provide real revenues on which to base increased operating budget appropriations for an acknowledged community priority.  It's the only realistic long term solution. That, or cutting $1 million plus out of the remaining of the Westport operating budget.
 
Municipal budgeting is now a zero sum game exercise, even with tremendous and creative  participation of citizens, town officials and legislative delegation. Like I said, when the revenue and appropriation lines cross, they do so with a vengeance. To the folks in Wesport  all I can say is try to make sure the crisis doesn't turn into a range war.

The Price of Standing Still

The price of UMass law school
---------------
By Jeff Jacoby
Globe Columnist / February 7, 2010
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 LAST WEEK’S vote by the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education to establish a state-run law school didn’t come close to passing the smell test.
The vote authorized the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth to acquire the Southern New England School of Law, a small private institution that had offered to donate itself to the state. Massachusetts Education Secretary Paul Reville called the offer “an extraordinary gift’’ that for the first time would enable UMass to provide “an affordable, high-quality legal education,’’ all without costing the taxpayers a dime.
In some alternate universe, maybe. In this one, the merger will almost certainly cost Massachusetts taxpayers a small fortune.
Southern New England is nobody’s idea of a first- or even second-rate law school. It has twice been denied accreditation by the American Bar Association. Its admission standards are derisory. Its library is inadequate. Its faculty is modest in both size and reputation. Not surprisingly, a large majority of its graduates fail the Massachusetts bar exam.
UMass officials claim that the school can be transformed into something far better at no public cost, but their plan for achieving that goal is dubious. It calls for sharply increasingly enrollment from 235 to 559, dramatically upgrading academic standards, yet charging less than $24,000 in tuition and fees - 35 percent less than the average per-student expenditure of other public law schools in the Northeast. To pull off such a feat, estimates James White, for 26 years the ABA’s chief consultant on legal education, would require a subsidy of between $92 million and $110 million over the next 10 years. The Pioneer Institute concurs, rating the UMass plan “virtually impossible.’’
“Their financials simply don’t work,’’ John O’Brien, a former chair of the ABA’s Accreditation Committee, told the Boston Globe. “This will bite the taxpayers and bite them big.’’ The rosy scenario laid out by UMass, he said, “is fiction.’’
But because O’Brien is also the dean of the New England School of Law, one of three smaller private law schools strenuously opposed to the UMass takeover of Southern New England - the others were Suffolk University and Western New England School of Law in Springfield - his warning was ignored. Worse than that: He and his counterparts at the other law schools were accused of basely conspiring to crush an innocent competitor.
UMass trustee James Karam, for example, ominously wondered “whether Suffolk and New England are in collusion . . . to try to stop an affordable alternative for a legal education in this state.’’ Jack Wilson, the president of the University of Massachusetts system, labeled the private law schools’ objections “nothing short of shameful.’’ One newspaper commentary charged the schools with having “joined in a holy battle to . . . snuff out a weaker competitor.’’
Again: Maybe in some other universe. In the one the rest of us live in, it is a metastasizing public sector that threatens the existence of private institutions - not the other way around. Once upon a time, Massachusetts boasted a thriving array of private junior colleges, which graduated thousands of students over the years. But few of them could withstand aggressive competition from the government, which, beginning in the 1960s, opened 15 community colleges around the state. Unable to prevent the deep-pocketed new state schools from siphoning away their students, most of the junior colleges died.
A more recent victim of Beacon Hill’s edifice complex is the Bayside Expo Center, the privately-owned Dorchester venue that for years hosted Boston’s most popular gate shows, including the New England Boat Show and the International Auto Show. The Bayside’s death warrant was signed when the state decided to build its own gigantic new convention center in South Boston. Unlike the government-run Boston Convention & Exhibition Center, the Bayside’s losses aren’t covered by annual taxpayer subsidies. So the biggest gate shows in Boston now go to the BCEC, and the Bayside will go out of business in the spring.
With a higher density of lawyers than all but three other states, Massachusetts doesn’t need a government-run law school any more than it needs government-run supermarkets. But need isn’t what drives empires to expand. UMass-Dartmouth’s acquisition of Southern New England will no doubt cost Massachusetts taxpayers millions of dollars they cannot afford. It may cost the state’s smaller private law schools more than just money.
Jeff Jacoby can be reached at jacoby@globe.com.

This article appeared as an OP-ED piece in The Boston Globe today. Jeff Jacoby is a well respected columnist for the Globe, and many times takes a conservative's view on most issues, public spending being foremost among them. Certainly he is entitled to his opinion, and there are more than a few people across the state, and even in the Southcoast region, who agree with him on this subject. I am not among them.

I do not believe we do enough to support first class public Colleges and Universities
in this state. And there is certainly nothing wrong with a little competition. These two American ideals, education as indespensible to a strong and free society, and competition to bring forth greater excellence from all in the contest, are part of what has  always made this country and it's people great. Whenever we shy away from these dual pillars of American society, we are a lesser people. Education and competition are the essence of America's strength. Without them we will ever be a second class society. In this, I wish never to share.

I have always found it suspect that many forces push and pull the Fourth (4th) Estate to it's views. Sometimes various columnists do the work of one party to the argument more than the other, and I think this article is a case in point. Reporting and Opinion expression, at this level of a national newspaper with a great reputation of journalism standards, obviously reflect the nature of news journals of any type as political entities which are occassionally captured by the forces backing a particular point of view. It happens and we must recognize the fact. And I am not pointing to popular beliefs that newspaper 'X" is a liberal journal, or "Y" is conservative. I am directly aiming at the the individuals writing the posts which help form popular opinion of the man on the street. It is usually more subtle than it is in this OP-ED entry. So whenever reading any newspaper story, always try to use an "opinion filter" while you read whatever is being reported, to cull as much true and unbiased fact out of what is written as you can. Because no one who writes a news story or OP-ED column is devoid of opinion or personal prejudice over and above what you read on the surface. What I am suggesting seems almost counter intuitive, and it is, somewhat. But not to actively do so leaves you open to confusion and that baffling feeling that after reading a series of articles on a story or subject, you still cannot make up your mind of what is REALLY happening. This is one of the costs of being a fully informed citizen in democratic American soiciety. It is one of the most important burdens of citizenship.

It is obvious that Jacoby sides with the smaller independent Law Schools who fought to prevent the Board of Higher education from approving the adoption of a UMASS/Dartmouth Law School. They fought with the help of lobbyists of one sort or the other, most of them acting sub-rosa, with a whispering campaign, and through negative newspaper articles like the one written today, but  before the fact. That's just the process working it's way to a logical conclusion. Sometimes, politics is just plain ugly, especially when it's played by the private sector. Folks, politics exisits in every human endeavor. That's just a fact of life.

Why do I support the UMASS/Dartmouth Law School? The reasonable tuition cost making it possible for more smart kids from Massachusetts and OTHER states, especially in New England, to obtain a solid legal education. Similar arguments were made by private Medical Schools in the region when the  UMASS/Worcester Medical School was being proposed. Have you ever heard of having too many well trained phycisians? What utter nonsense! And it's not like more lawyers would be THAT bad of an idea (talk about counter intuitive!) when this law school would have a distinct public interest outlook. You can never have enough well trained legal minds on the Southcoast with the depth and breadth of crime occurring here everyday. Who says all these attorney's will work solely as public defenders? Some could specialize in municipal law. Some in public interest law. Maybe some in intellectual property law or immigtion law. What, are local lawyers afraid of competition? Based on what I've experienced personally, and what I've read about this past year of what happened at City Hall, we could use a bit of competition to push all lawyers to better performance! Just because you graduate from law school and pass the bar on the first try doesn't mean you get to cruise for the rest of your life. If no one told you lawyers that before today, I am, so WAKE UP!

UMASS/Worcester has a world class Med School. UMASS/Amherst has a world class Business School, and there are more graduates from it's MBA program who are heads of Fortune 500 companies THAN ANY OTHER MBA PROGRAM IN THE COUNTRY, INCLUDING HARVARD AND STANFORD! Why shouldn't UMASS/Dartmouth develop a world class Law School? As long as they make a committment to excellence and aim to have the most students passing the bar on their first try than any other law school in New England I don't care what it costs!

I think it's obvious what is happening here. Governor Romney used to slash the higher education budget, saying we had so many great private institutions in the immediate area that we didn't need to fund public higher education to the extent we did. Again, what utter elitist hogwash! Just the opposite should occur.
The overwhelming majority of students seeking  a college or university education are quite bright and simply need a chance to grow into their innate excellence. However, not everyone can afford Harvard, or MIT, or BC, or BU, or Tufts. We absolutely need a public alternative for all academic areas that is excellent, committed to even more excellence and at a cost the average citizen can afford. To not do so brands us as a society where only the wealthy can enjoy the entirety of  America's opportunities. We're a bigger people than that. We're a better people than that.
Sorry Jeff.....even you, a conservative,  should understand that a bit of competition is a good thing, that it brings about even greater levels of excellence everywhere. And to that end, I have an idea......if the small Boston Law Schools can't compete with a state funded school....maybe they should MERGE to survive...if anything has been brought home in this economy it is the idea that no instutution should be too big to fail. It's competition, and the American way. It might be the price those law schools pay for standing still.

There but for the Grace of God........

Haiti Hospital’s Fight Against TB
 Falls to One Man
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Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times
Published: February 5, 2010
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Sommervil Webert, 24, is a tuberculosis patient in the makeshift clinic in Port-au-Prince. Other patients must sleep outside

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — At a fly-infested clinic hastily erected alongside the rubble of the only tuberculosis sanatorium in this country, Pierre-Louis Monfort is  lonely man in a crowded room.
Clervil Orange, a patient at what remains of Haiti's only TB hospital, getting a haircut this week. “Why don't you just leave us to die?” he asked the lone nurse there.
Haiti has the highest tuberculosis rate in the Americas, and health experts say it is about to drastically increase.
But amid the ramshackle remains of the hospital where the country’s most infected patients used to live, Mr. Monfort runs the clinic alone, facing a vastness of unmet need that is as clear as the desperation on the faces around the room.
“I’m drowning,” said Mr. Monfort, 52, flanked by a line of people waiting for pills as he emptied a bedpan full of blood. All of the hospital’s 50 other nurses and 20 doctors died in the earthquake or have refused to return to work out of fear for the building’s safety or preoccupation with their own problems, he said. Mr. Monfort joked that the earthquake had earned him a promotion from a staff nurse at the sanatorium to its new executive director.
In normal times, Haiti sees about 30,000 new cases of tuberculosis each year. Among infectious diseases, it is the country’s second most common killer, after AIDS, according to the World Health Organization.
The situation has gone from bad to worse because the earthquake set off a dangerous diaspora. Most of the sanatorium’s several hundred surviving patients fled and are now living in the densely packed tent cities where experts say they are probably spreading the disease. Most of these patients have also stopped taking their daily regimen of pills, thereby heightening the chance that there will be an outbreak of a strain resistant to treatment, experts say.

At the city’s General Hospital, Dr. Megan Coffee said, “This right here is what is going to be devastating in six months,” and she pointed to several tuberculosis patients thought to have a resistant strain of the disease who were quarantined in a fenced-off blue tent. “Someone needs to go and help Monfort, or we are all going to be in big trouble.”

Amid the rubble of the sanatorium in Port-au-Prince, Pierre-Louis Monfort struggles to meet patients’ needs.

A further complication is that definitively diagnosing tuberculosis takes weeks. So doctors are instead left to rely on conspicuous symptoms like night sweats, severe coughing and weight loss. “But look around,” Dr. Coffee said. “Everyone is thin, everyone is coughing from the dust and everyone is sweating from the heat.”
Dr. Richar D’Meza, the coordinator for tuberculosis for the Haitian Ministry of Health, said his office and the World Health Organization had begun stockpiling tuberculosis medicines. “We are very concerned about a resistant strain, but we are also getting ready,” he said, adding that he is assembling medical teams to begin entering tent camps to survey for the disease.
“This will begin soon,” he said. “We will get help to these people soon.”
For Mr. Monfort, it is not soon enough. He scavenges the rubble daily for medicines and needles. He sterilizes needles using bleach and then reuses the bleach to clean the floors.
In his cramped clinic, eight of the sickest and most contagious patients lay on brown- and red-stained beds. He said he had lost count of how many more were sleeping in other pockets alongside the hospital. Hundreds come daily to pick up medicine.
Outside the clinic, the air is thick with the sickening smell of rotting bodies. Occasionally a breeze carried a waft of char from small cooking fires nearby, offering a respite from the stench and the flies.
Mr. Monfort began to explain that his biggest problem was a lack of food. Suddenly a huge crash shook the clinic. A patient screamed. Everyone stood still, eyes darting. A man outside yelled that another section of the hospital had collapsed. People looking for materials to build huts had pulled wood pilings from a section of the hospital roof, which then fell as the scavengers leapt to safety, the man said.
Mr. Monfort looked to the ground silently as if the weight of his lonely responsibility had just come crashing down.
“These people are dying and in pain here,” he said. “And no one seems to care.”
The dire scene at Mr. Monfort’s clinic speaks to a larger concern: as hospitals and medical staff are overrun by people with acute conditions, patients who were previously getting treatment for cancer, H.I.V. and other chronic or infectious diseases have been pushed aside and no longer have access to care.
At the Champ de Mars, Jean-Baptiste Renauld sat on a curb, one shoe missing, his blue polo shirt torn, his head cupped in his hands. “I have TB, and I am also supposed to get dialysis every other day,” he said, explaining that he was a doctor’s assistant before the earthquake and meticulous about his treatments. “I have not had dialysis in three weeks, and I feel my blood is rotting from inside.”
 Waving his hand over a sea of tents and tarpaulins, he added, “It is like this country.”
Back at the clinic, Mr. Monfort struggled to fix an IV that had missed the vein and was painfully pumping fluids under a patient’s skin. Another ghost of a man hobbled to the doorway on crutches, moaning for help. “Please wait, please wait,” Mr. Monfort said in a tense whisper.
The biggest source of stress, Mr. Monfort said, is that his three children and wife are living on the street because the earthquake destroyed their home. His wife begs him daily to stay with them. Instead, unpaid and without a mask or gloves to wear, he walks to the sanatorium each day at 6 a.m. and stays until 8 p.m. when most of the patients drift to sleep.

Clervil Orange, a patient at what remains of Haiti's only TB hospital, getting a haircut this week. “Why don't you just leave us to die?” he asked the lone nurse there.

“Why don’t you just leave us to die?” asked Clervil Orange, 39. Mr. Monfort looked offended by the notion. But he did not answer and the question seemed to stick with him.
The ancient Greek playwright Aeschylus once wrote that there was a type of suffering so intense that, even in our sleep, it bores into the heart until eventually, “in our own despair, against our will,” it taps into a terrible wisdom.
After several minutes in silence, Mr. Monfort spoke of that wisdom. He referred to it as a “strange hope” that had sprung from the suffering of his patients and the loss and abandonment of his fellow staff members.
“These people here are dying, but they keep me alive,” he said. “I know they are hurting more than me and not complaining.
“So,” he said, handing another walk-in patient a packet of pills, “I must continue.”

Whenever in the future I start to feel overwhelmed by my own circumstances, of what I must personally endure from day to day or how hopeless our own community's situation might seem, I will remember this article, and the troubles of the people of Haiti.