Posts by bumpkin:
Flat Iron gig – March 27
March 12th, 2010
Arty photo that makes me look trendy and cool
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Facebook users can see the event announcement here. You can see my profile here.
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I’ve been working on some new material and experimenting with some new picking techniques. I’m playing around with a style adapted from clawhammer guitar. Clawhammer is a very percussive style where all notes are played with a down stroke using only your finger(usually index) and thumb. The index finger strikes the string with the nail while the thumb sort of plucks with the fleshy part (down stroke) – kind of pulling it down and out. The nail makes a clicking noise when it hits the string that when done right produces a unique sound.
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Here are a couple of videos from the last gig. Quality is not great – audio contains a lot of noise from the table where it was filmed from – but it still gives a fair idea of the sort of stuff I do. The first video is a jazzed up acoustic version of the Monkees song Papa Gene’s Blues and the second one is a subdued version of Little Bird Of Heaven – and song with and old time feel from the Reeltime Travellers.
Gazette column for 3/11/2010
March 11th, 2010This week’s Middleboro Gazette column concerns health care for town employees. The increase in costs for these plans mostly exceed our increase in revenues and are a big part of the reason for the deficits in recent and coming years.
The column draws heavily from information in the recent Sean Murhpy articles, along with some information I got from FinCom chairman Rich Pavadore and Town Manager Charlie Cristello. The column tries to give the layman an understanding of how town healthcare plans work, how they strain the budget, how they compare to the private sector, and some of the available options. It also talks about some changes currently under negotiation that would achieve significant savings in the coming fiscal year and beyond.
Not as entertaining perhaps as one of my typical “Hey, look what the BOS did” columns but valuable I think for the majority of us who don’t understand how this stuff works.
As always, you can send email to me using the address included with every column. One thing that may not be clear is that these emails are generally not shared with the editor. I love getting email from readers but you should also send email to the editor to tell her how much you love, hate, or ignore my columns. A CC or BCC will do that and save you a second email.
UPDATE
On a related topic this Globe article looks at the wide gap between public and private sector jobs. Guess which comes out on top – by a wide margin?
Three years late and $7M short
March 10th, 2010Senator Marc Pacheco came to the Middleboro Board of Selectmen meeting on 3/8/2010 to answer charges that his legislation was intentionally leaving Middleboro out of the running for a casino. Pacheco went so far as to say that anyone who says such a thing is lying.
Strong words.
Here are my issues with Pacheco. He was a total no-show during Casino Summer ‘07. Many of us called, emailed, and sent letters and got nothing but canned responses when what we needed was leadership. His appearance now seems like an election year attempt to do damage control. He still has not clearly stated his position on a Middleboro sovereign indian casino – which makes me think he’s against it.
Pacheco is unapologetically pro-gambling – which is fine. At one point he stated that expanded gambling in Massachusetts would produce $1B a year in revenue. A wild number that far exceeds even what Governor Patrick was floating in 2008 for his three casino plan. Patrick’s numbers were heavily criticized as being overly optimistic – by a factor of two according to an MTA study.
If Pacheco came to Middleboro and said, “I’m pro-gambling and fully support a sovereign indian casino in for these reasons …..” I wouldn’t like it but I’d respect it. Rep. Tom Calter came here – stood in front of both CFO and the Middleboro BOS and stated his position relative to a sovereign indian Middleboro casino in clear and direct terms. That makes me want to vote for Calter whereas Pacheco’s appearance accomplished the opposite. Sure if he’s going up against a teabagger, this lifelong liberal Democrat will probably vote for him. But I may cross party lines for the first time since the horrible Gingrich years if there is a reasonable opponent. That could all change if he addresses this question in unequivocal terms: Do you support a sovereign indian casino in Middleboro?
My last issue, or at least the last one I feel like mentioning is his verbosity. He was here to say – “My legislation does NOT omit Middleboro from possible casino locations despite what some people and some newspapers have said”. He took almost 40 minutes to say something that could have been said in less than 5. I seriously doubt anyone is going to get through all 4 videos due to the unengaging and repetitive monologue Pacheco subjected the BOS to. I know that sounds mean but it’s true. I have a newfound respect for the BOS’s patience and above all their ability to stay awake after seeing this.
And my real last issue was his answer to a question by resident Mike Solimini. Solomini asked why states with a lot of casinos like Nevada and Florida have higher foreclosure rates than Massachusetts. Pacheco answered “They would have a higher foreclosure rate for they’re much larger”. Clearly he was confusing “rate” with “quantity”. This was a simple, clearly stated question that Pacheco failed to understand and answer. Boo hiss. At 3:30 of part four is a question about donations from gambling interests from Allin Frawley followed by Solimini’s question.
Mr. Pacheco – you should do a podcast with me. It would really up your Internet street cred and give you an unscripted forum to show your stuff and address this issue directly.
Pacheco at BOS – Part 1
Pacheco at BOS – Part 2
Pacheco at BOS – Part 3
Pacheco at BOS – Part 4
Land 4 wind discussed at BOS meeting
March 9th, 2010I haven’t watched all of it yet, but the Enterprise has a short article about a discussion at last night’s BOS meeting regarding a proposal to to swap four parcels of town-owned land for the St. Luke’s Hospital property in downtown Middleboro . There has been talk of using the site for a police station. The building is currently vacant and looks to be in pretty rough shape. I have heard that it is completely gutted inside – which is a good thing. What surprised me in this article was that current proposals call for the building to be totally or partially demolished and rebuilt. That seems to make the project less viable.
I have serious doubts that any wind project could be done on some of the smaller parcels that are being discussed. If this ever goes forward, we’d better do something smart to prevent the land from being used for something we don’t want.
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Conceptually I like the idea of turning the abandoned St. Luke’s into something that wasn’t such an eyesore but it has to make financial sense. From the quotes in the article it sounds like the selectmen are doing due diligence on this.
Events added to nemasket.net
March 8th, 2010Warning: The following post may contain techno-babble
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Control panel entry
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WP List Cal
New event entry
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If you’ve used WordPress, you know that there are two main constructs – Pages and Posts. Each can have attributes to aid in navigation and searching(Categories and Tags). WPListCal creates what looks like a third construct – Events. You create and edit them exactly like Posts or Pages. They have a special field for links, and date/time in addition to the normal text/images you might put into a post. The widget appears along with all the other widgets and can be placed anywhere on the page your theme supports. My “event” widget is named “Notables” and is on the right side of the page.
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So why am I writing about this? I know of at least 4 other web sites in town that use WordPress and I’m just sharing the wealth.
Dear Cedric
March 6th, 2010
Cedric Cromwell - thoughtful pose number 3
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In that last couple of days there have been articles about DeLeo’s plan to introduce 6 casinos in Massachusetts – a plan that hasn’t been vetted to see if it makes economic sense. In many of these articles there is the obligatory quote from the Mashpee Wampanoag about how this legislation makes their already inevitable(guffaw) casino even more inevitable. Super duper inevitable I guess. Today is no different. In this Globe article we have:I have no particular bone to pick with the Mashpee Wampanoag though I do have some issues with their leadership over the last few years. I guess that started when they elected a lying rapist embezzling valor-stealing flim-flam man and sent him to Middleboro to tell my town that they were going to put a casino here whether we wanted it or not and rushed the Middleboro into a deal that gives insufficient compensation to cover the effects. All that said, I don’t dislike the Mashpee Wampanoag or even their current leadership. I even like them in a Stockholm Syndrome kind of way. And since I do, I feel required to say this.
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Dear Cedric,
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I know that you want the best for your tribe – I get that. But I have to tell you that you just look uninformed when you make statements like this. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but you can’t move ahead with any casino without a Carcieri fix. Even if there is a Carcieri fix, there are numerous hurdles to overcome not the least of which is the Fifth Circuit court decision in Kickapoo(love that name) v Texas that says the state cannot be compelled to enter into a compact because it would be a violation of state sovereignty.
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If you’ve read the writing on the wall like I have, you know that the state of Massachusetts has no interest in giving you a sovereign casino and has no intention of doing so. As evidence of that refer to the 100+ pages of objections that the state submitted in opposition to your land into trust application. Also refer to proposed legislation that says that any preference for a tribal casino would require that you have sovereign land(you don’t) that is eligible for gaming under IGRA(you don’t) and that you waive sovereign rights.
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Your carefully prepared statement says that you plan to build in “Southeastern Massachusetts”. If you intended to build in Middleboro, you would have said “Middleboro” .. but you didn’t. My town has spent a lot of time and effort supporting this casino and I think you owe it to us to be honest and tell the Board of Selectmen that there is no way Middleboro is getting a casino and that the deal in place is unworkable because of the $250M in infrastructure it requires(Thank you Ruth Geoffroy. Thank you, thank you, thank you.). But most of all Cedric, I honestly want you to stop embarrassing yourself by statements like this. You are not in position for a sovereign casino and it’s doubtful that you’ll be given a commercial one since there is a line of experienced casino operators in front of you. The best thing for your people and mine is to admit that this turkey is done and move one.
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As Englebert Humperdinck(love that name) said – “Please release me, let me go”
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Sincerely,
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Mark Belanger (call me – we’ll do lunch)
DeLeo plan
March 5th, 2010The Middleboro ca-bingo emporium and 5 star albatross around my town’s neck continues to bubble up in the news – most recently in reports about DeLeo’s casino plan. Let’s look at a couple of cherry-picked facts in no particular order to set the mood before I talk about DeLeo.
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There was the legislator who said to one of my peeps. “There’s not going to be an Indian casino in Middleboro. Rt. 44 is a state road. If we have to we’ll turn it into a *&$##@ one way”.
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We have 100 plus pages of objections Governor Patrick submitted to the BIA opposing land into trust for the proposed Middleboro casino land – land that the tribe STILL doesn’t own by the way.
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We have the tribe refusing to give us any money to get started on the infrastructure.
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Then there was Calter, Canessa, Pacheco (who all represent Middleboro) signing on to legislation that would put the casino anywhere in the known universe except Middleboro.
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We have the tribe fishing around Fall River to locate a casino there.
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So that’s where we are in my estimation.
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In today’s Enterprise we have a column from Alice Elwell that puts a Middleboro perspective on the news that Massachusetts House Speaker Robert DeLeo will introduce legislation for four slot parlors and two resort casinos. Note that most news reports are calling this a plan for two casinos when in fact it’s a plan for six. Nowhere in DeLeo’s speech was Middleboro mentioned. I have to admit that I took no notice of that until reading the Elwell column.
RI school may fire all teachers
March 4th, 2010Something I’ve been meaning to write about – a Rhode Island high school that is threatening to fire every teacher in an under-performing school. The superintendent wanted longer school days and the teacher’s union refused without financial incentives. The school board voted 5-2 to fire the entire staff at the end of the school year. Teachers have offered a counterproposal and talks will resume.
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This NYT article from 10 days ago offers some perspective to go along with the more recent Globe article.
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There’s something appealing about a nuclear option like this when conditions warrant a reboot of a failing system. I’d expect to see more actions like this with other public employee unions as local budget shortfalls continue to collide with the costs of supplying raises and generous benefits to government employees.
The moment of clarity
March 4th, 2010This Globe column has me wondering if Middleboro BOS chairman Pat Rogers is starting to have an “aha” moment about the prospects for the Middleboro casino and the slim chance that it will move forward:
The last I heard, the tribe owed something like $30K to the company that did the EIS but didn’t have the money to pay for it. I could be wrong on that number but no matter how much they owe, it’s short money considering the millions that investors have flushed into this project. So why the delay on submitting the EIS? Granted there really is no rush since there is no way for LIT to be approved, but still. Why not submit the EIS to maintain the illusion that the project is on track? Maybe by submitting the EIS, the tribe will have to start ponying up millions to Middleboro for the needed infrastructure – money that they don’t have and can’t get..
I don’t know but it’s fun to speculate.
A deal you can’t refuse
March 2nd, 2010
It's not a casino - it's magic
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Back to my Magic Widget analogy. So you’ve finally been convinced to consider taking a Magic Widget but want to check on a few things. You want to make sure that the money you spend has the value you expect. Woah – hold on I say – that’s just crazy talk. If you want my Magic Widget you have to take it sight unseen and just trust that it’s everything I say it is. That’s what House Speaker DeLeo is asking us all by refusing to have an independent cost/benefit analyis of casinos in Massachusetts. Isn’t that a bit like buying a house but the seller won’t allow a home inspection?
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This is the sort of thing that always accompanies casinos. When Middleboro was being intimidated and threatened with a casino in 2007 we were told that the casino was coming whether we wanted it or not and that we would get nothing if we didn’t sign a deal with the Mashpee Wampanaog. An insider to the negotiations told me recently that when Middleboro wanted to bring in a professional gaming attorney, the tribe’s representatives said they would walk away from the deal if we did. Well, we did, they didn’t walk, but that’s not the point. Can you imagine entering into a multi-million dollar agreement and being told that the deal was off if you brought in a professional attorney? That’s what happened here folks and it’s anyone’s guess why Middleboro didn’t go running in the opposite direction.
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Money to influence lawmakers – Check
Refusal to do cost benefit analysis – Check
Rush to introduce legislation – Check
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Hope that’s what you want folks – cause that’s what DeLeo is going to give you.
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Enjoy.
Dan Kennedy on healthcare
March 2nd, 2010Dan Kennedy has chimed in on the Murphy articles about the cost of healthcare for local goverments. Check out his post.
Sobering look at healthcare costs
February 28th, 2010
Rising costs strain local budgets
Issues covered in the article:
- Lifetime benefits given to employees, elected officials with short service time
- State law that requires towns to cover retirees and towns that don’t force retirees onto Medicare at age 65 – continuing to provide cadillac healthcare plans instead.
- Doubling of municipal healthcare costs from 2001 to 2008
- Prop 2 1/2 caps on taxes means that health care cost increases eat up all revenue increases. This means closed fire/police stations, reduced library hours, etc.
- Overly generous benefits that insure a family will always choose the public health plan of one spouse over the private plan of the other.
- Prop 2 1/2 override efforts are partially spurred by health care cost increases – overrides that are short term solutions.
- Benefits for current and future retirees are an unfunded liability is in the hundreds of millions for some cities – $600M for Brockton and $5.7B for Boston
- Elected officials in some towns also get health care benefits: “Six former city councilors are insured by Everett, plus 12 current ones. In Kingston, 10 part-time elected officials receive town-subsidized health coverage, including four Planning Board members, three Health Board members, and a sewer commissioner, all of whom typically attend two meetings a month.”
- Municipal health care plans are far more generous than private sector ones on average. Lower co-pays, lower employee contribution percentages, and greater benefits.
- State law that subjects benefits to collective bargaining
- Lack of local political will – “Communities, under a state law passed in 1991, can force employees to enroll with Medicare, but only if the change is approved by the city council or town meeting. In some places, that has proven politically difficult, given the clout of active and retired municipal workers.”
- Overly generous pensions that allow police, firefighters, and teachers to retire before age 65. This makes them ineligible for Medicare even if the town had the political will to compel them to use it.
Middleboro’s Cristello passes on raise
February 27th, 2010This just in from the “Nice Gesture” department. Citing local budget problems, Middleboro Town Manager Charles Cristello refused to accept his yearly salary increase at the Middleboro Board of Selectmen meeting of 2/22/2010. This is partially related to my last post about Middleboro salaries. The raise would have amounted to $3,900. As I’ve said before, towns need the same flexibility as private industry when it comes to employee compensation. Raises should be merit based and contingent on the ability to pay for them. This would be a sea change in the way local government works – don’t expect to see it any time soon.
Are Middleboro’s salaries too high?
February 26th, 2010I got this communication from a person who wishes to remain anonymous. This is not the first time I’ve heard complaints about the top-dollar salaries Middleboro pays some of it’s department heads.
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Is this person right? ….. Discuss
BOS lettter to tribe – part two
February 25th, 2010At the Middleboro BOS meeting of 2/22/2010, Town Manager Cristello read a draft letter to be sent to the Mashpee Wampanaog about recent news reports that the tribe was looking to ditch the Middleboro casino in favor of a more Mass-friendly location like Fall River.
The first video contains a lengthy discussion where Selectman Steve McKinnon pushes the board to use the opportunity to improve know weaknesses in the IGA – such as the fact that the base payment of $7M don’t get a CPI increase until the doors open. We’re on year three since the IGA was signed. If CPI was 2.5%, that would be a loss to Middleboro of over a half million dollars. As usual, the rest of the BOS do absolutely nothing and McKinnon is left hanging as the sole dissenting vote.
In the second video, selectman candidate Allin Frawley and Brian Giovanoni ask some questions. Allin wants the board to find out what our options are if the tribe does go to Fall River – what legal recourse do we have. A very smart idea which naturally the hopelessly pro-casino board of selectman reject.
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Board discussion of letter
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Public discussion of letter
BOS letter to tribe
February 24th, 2010From the Middleboro Board of Selectmen meeting of 2/22/2010 – town manager Charles Cristello reads the draft of a letter to the Mashpee Wampanoag. The letter is prompted by reports that the tribe has been fishing around the Freetown/Fall River area for a new casino location. It’s pretty common knowledge that the sovereign casino in Middleboro is doubtful at best and most likely impossible. It is also obvious to most that the amount of infrastructure required for the Middleboro location makes the project a non-starter.
The tone of the letter is more forceful than past communications which have been mostly fawning and ineffectual. In a subsequent post I will include video of the BOS and public discussion.
Scott Brown bucks the party of “no”
February 23rd, 2010I’ve been critical of Scott Brown – I find his record to be indicative of someone who leans far right. I also expected that his rush to be certified was actually a rush to oppose anything and everything proposed by President Obama.
In the jobs bill at least, Scott Brown was one of only five Republicans to support it going against the partly line.
I’ll give him a big atta-boy for that. But I still find this to be hilarious and I hope that Senator Brown proves me totally wrong.
Gladys says….
February 22nd, 2010
Gladys Kravitz at BOS meeting
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You can contact your US representative, Barney Frank in my case, via the House of Representatives page. On Frank’s contact page he advises:Once more into the breach friends – WRITE THOSE LETTERS.
O’Reilly hell freezes over
February 21st, 2010Hyper-spin meister Bill O’Reilly somehow manages to sound reasonable and pitches a bunch of moderate softballs to Sarah Palin – who fails to hit a single pitch. Palin shows a stunning inability to recognize and discuss the core point that O’Reilly is trying to make – that the Teabaggers are at risk – that radical elements within the movement will destroy their credibility.
Fabricated cosmology
February 19th, 2010Interesting Globe article about a Wampanoag tribal member who sent a letter in support of Cape Wind and called the Mashpee/Aquinna opposition a “fabricated cosmology”. Remember that the Mashpee and Aquinnah Wampanoag, who have no issue with mega-casinos, are opposing Cape Wind on the grounds that their sacred ceremonies require an unobstructed view of the sunrise – a premise that has been questioned before. An excerpt of the letter appears in the article:
My religion – the worship of nature requires that my town of Middleboro not be marred by a towering hotel/casino. Can I get the same consideration that the Mashpee want for the their view of the Nantucket Sound?Windmill meeting with Calter
February 18th, 2010
Rep. Tom Calter
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Mr. Calter gave me the short version of his philosophy on life and a bit of his background as business man. He also showed genuine interest in who I was, my family, my work and generally tried to get a feel for where I was coming from.
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I gave him the high level details of the idea to put windmills on state land. I showed him some data about the potential energy that could be generated – nearly 1,000 MW. In context, Cape Wind will average around 170MW. Tom asked if I knew of any hurdles – saying that his place was to remove any legislative barriers to the idea. I told him that I didn’t expect him to implement this plan single-handedly – that would be the job of the governor or other state agency. I told him that according to a 2009 study there were no regulatory problems I was aware of – just a lot of engineering and environmental work to identify exactly where and how many wind mills could be erected. In other words turning potential numbers and general locations into actual numbers and specific locations.
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Tom said he would talk to Secretary Greg Bialecki – head of Housing and Economic Development and asked me if I would like to attend the meeting. I told him that I gladly would but didn’t think that I necessarily bring anything to the table for that meeting. In other words, I’d attend if he thought it would be helpful.
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Regardless of whether or not anything comes of this, I give huge credit to Tom Calter for responsiveness. He answered my email, arranged a one-on-one meeting, discussed the idea and plans to take it up with the Secretary of Housing and Economic Development. You can’t ask for any more than that. I find it very interesting that I can send email to a state rep and get prompt and personal attention. He even paid for my drink and bowl of soup. That’s far more than I’ve ever gotten from the Middleboro Board of Selectman. I didn’t even get a “no thank you” when I offered the town a free web site, training, and year of support. That said, I’ve found Rullo and McKinnon to be responsive. Even so, I can’t go to the town web site and get any email address or even phone number to contact my selectmen – and there is something very wrong with that.
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Very wrong.
Farewell Peter Sgro
February 17th, 2010
Photo from Peter Sgro's facebook page
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I didn’t know Peter very well but my wife was quite friendly with him. He seemed like a real nice guy and was a great photographer – capturing many an image for the Gazette.
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Only 61 – that’s a damn shame.
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Update.
I just gave the news to my wife – she’s very upset. Coincidentally she talked to him on Monday night – she saw him on the Y walking track and briefly spoke to him down by the stretching machine. He was complaining of back pain. Very sad.
Dog whispering … or shouting
February 16th, 2010As a new dog owner, I’ve been watching The Dog Whisperer and have to say I like the show. Host Cesar Millan focuses on a dog’s pack mentality to exert dominance over the dogs. In this Boston Globe article a number of animal trainers and behaviorists are taking issue with Millan’s methods:
One episode that is oftne cited by Milan’s detractors has him in an altercation with an Alaskan Malamut in which Millan gets bit several times and brings the dog under control with a choke chain. Having seen the clip, I don’t think it’s all that bad and don’t know what else he could have done to control the animal..
Without knowing anything about dogs, Millan’s theories seem to make a lot of sense and I think his detractors are way exagerrating charges that he is cruel to the dogs. I love the show and his methods seem to work.
Letter to Scott Brown
February 15th, 2010Shortly after Scott Brown was elected senator, I sent this email. It’s been over three weeks and I haven’t gotten so much as a form letter response like “thanks for the email”. So much for the hope that Scott Brown would listen to his contituents. Kennedy on the other hand was known for the responsiveness of his office. Here is the letter:
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Windmill plan redux
February 12th, 2010Back in October 2008, I wrote a post humorously titled The Bumpkin Plan. In short it was an idea to use state or federal land in windy areas to allow private individuals to erect windmills. The energy from the windmills would be fed into the grid and the money from the electricity would go to the private investor. I had posted the idea as a comment on Rep. Dan Bosley’s blog and got a very favorable response from him. I didn’t follow up on anything and that was the end of it.
Recently for various reasons, I’ve decided to revisit the idea. I sent email to Citizen’s Energy about the idea. They pointed me to a MA study from 2009 that explored the idea of using state land for renewable energy. This EOEEA page has links related to the study including an index of potential sites and a map of the sites. I also contacted a government official who was pretty enthusiastic about the idea.
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Clearly, when one looks at wind potential in Massachusetts, there is a vast amount of untapped clean renewable energy.
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This post is more of a scratch pad to spitball some high level details for a plan that would allow private individuals to purchase an interest in energy generated by wind mills(and possibly other renewable sources) on state land.
- Individuals would be allowed to purchase an amount of kilowatt hours. It makes no sense for me to buy a windmill but rather a quantity of electricity.
- The state of MA would create the regulatory/legislative plumbing to implement this plan in a way that won’t lead to years of costly litigation
- The state of MA would build the infrastructure to get power from state lands to the grid
- A portion of the money generated from the sale of electrical energy would go toward maintenance, infrastructure, and possibly general state revenue.
- Considering Patrick’s relationship with Obama, perhaps there would be federal assistance to fund a large portion of it as a pilot program for other states
- Windmills would be erected, managed, and maintained by the state or some combination of state/private entities.
- My friend Dave suggested that existing power lines might be a good place for windmills to compensate for line loss and to utilize what is usually otherwise unutilized swaths of land.
- If possible, currently unemployed MA residents could be paid to work on the infrastructure. Think of it as a miniature WPA specifically for creation of energy infrastructure
- Done right, this program could leap frog Massachusetts into a world leading center for wind and renewable energy technology and promote good jobs in the clean energy economy.
- This plan has a PR advantage over fully commercial plans like Cape Wind – nobody can accuse a corporation of currying favor if all the investors are private citizens like myself.
I’d welcome any additional ideas or refinements to the ones already presented.
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