Comments (2) Reminder – Middleboro Selectman Steve McKinnon campaign kick-off
On Sunday March 4 at 2PM you are all invited to a campaign kickoff event for Stephen McKinnon! I am running for a second term on the Middleborough Board of Selectman. I need your support. I cannot do this without you. Come on down to the Flat Iron Cafe on Center Street in Middleborough. Enjoy Pizza Salad and a cash bar. I look forward to seeing you all there!
There will be meet and greet with U.S. Congressman Bill Keating today(March 3) at the Flat Iron Cafe from 2:30 to 4PM.
444 Centre Street
Middleborough, Massachusetts 02346
Middleboro has long been represented by Rep. Barney Frank until this year’s redistricting. Rep. Keating is doing due diligence to meet our residents and understand our issues.
I’ve been hearing rumblings about the tribe talking to the town and this article confirms it:
Middleboro and the Mashpee Wampanoag are in talks to dissolve the casino deal they made in 2007, Middleboro Town Manager Charles Cristello said Thursday.
A source with knowledge of the renewed talks said it was tribe lobbyist Emmet Hayes, a former state representative from Whitman, who met with town leaders to negotiate on behalf of the Mashpee Wampanoag.
Emmet Hayes …. call me. We’ll do lunch
Middleboro put years of effort into the casino project. We expended uncounted man hours and incurred hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees. Town leadership and department heads wasted thousands and thousands of hours on this project – who knows what opportunities were lost while we focused on the casino. Beyond calculation is the chaos and animosity that this rushed and poorly conceived project caused in town.
Once again Middleboro finds itself driving the bus. The Mashpee are at a delicate point in their serial casino quest. I think we are currently reading: Inevitable Casino: Part IV – The Taunton Resort Project
Four years after the Inevitable Middleboro Casino was supposed to open, our hapless heros embark on an even more exciting low-rent project
.
Middleboro should be compensated for its troubles and file a lawsuit immediately if a resolution is not reached. Our contract with the tribe is still valid. The Middleboro IGA has no provisions for ending the contract in a one-sided manner the way the tribe did. Since we have suffered damage, the time to seek legal recourse is now – while the tribe is starting their Taunton endeavor.
Proper compensation to me would be
One thing I agreed with is Town Manager Cristellos assessment about the desire of Middleboro to host a casino:
One thing is certain, Middleboro is no longer interested in being a host community for a casino, Cristello said. “I think at this point they’ve made too many enemies in Middleboro by the way they treated the town,” he said of the tribe.
And the last thing I want to comment on is tribal chairman Cedric Cromwell’s comment:
But in an interview with the Cape Cod Times Wednesday, tribal council Chairman Cedric Cromwell said the tribe has “fulfilled every expectation” in Middleboro.
“Fufilled every expectation”?!??? Come on Cedric – it’s one thing to put a positive spin on things but that’s just batshit crazy.
Normally I would never use my blog to advance a political agenda, but I thought I’d mention that Middleboro Selectman Steve McKinnon is running for re-election and is holding a campaign kickoff event:
On Sunday March 4 at 2PM you are all invited to a campaign kickoff event for Stephen McKinnon! I am running for a second term on the Middleborough Board of Selectman. I need your support. I cannot do this without you. Come on down to the Flat Iron Cafe on Center Street in Middleborough. Enjoy Pizza Salad and a cash bar. I look forward to seeing you all there!
I am supporting Mr. McKinnon and would ask you to show up considering all the honest, sincere, hard work that Steve has given to Middleboro in his role as selectman.
I ran into Steve tonight at a meeting that was reviewing changes to the Middleboro zoning by-laws. This is just one of many, many, many meetings that Mr. McKinnon has attended while doing his due diligence as a Middleboro selectman. No fanfare, no bragging, no horn-blowing. I don’t agree with Steve all the time – and that’s OK. He busts his ass, listens to feedback, is accessible, and puts in tremendous effort.
The town is a better place since he took office. Please support him.
There was a time not so long ago when the BOS meeting room was a place I considered to be hostile to people who didn’t share the right agenda or run in the right circles. That is all changed. The positive change started with McKinnon/Rullo and became downright good policy when Frawley and Quelle were elected. No matter who you are, you get a fair hearing these days.
McKinnon deserves to be re-elected.
Back in May 2011, I wrote a column about our then $120M unfunded OPEB liability. OPEB – Other Post Employment Benefits – are expenses that Middleboro will incur after town employees retire over and above pension costs. These costs are mostly to provide health care for retirees.
There is no way to fund our liability to current and future retirees for their health care costs without massive cuts to our current budget to fund that liability combined with a steep reduction in the health benefits of town retirees. For reasons unknown to me, government employees need to have benefits that are unheard of in the private sector and nobody has the political will to address it. Government employees should have no pensions — they should have a selffunded pension like I do. When they retire, they should pay for their own health care like I’ll have to. If and when state law allows it, all employees should be switched to the cheapest decent health plan — such as GIC — and retirees should be switched to Medicare.
Following this column, I wrote about GIC – the healthcare plan used by the state of Massachusetts. Over the last 10 years Middleboro paid $21M more than in needed to for providing healthcare to its employees and retired employees than it would have if the town had been using GIC.
That’s the back story. Last night at the BOS meeting, the Middleboro Board of Selectmen voted unanimously to start the process that will lead to switching town employees to GIC. I had heard(and not believed) that we wouldn’t gain much by switching to GIC. Apparently there was a 10% increase in the cost of our plan this year – over $1M – that made GIC more attractive. The town is also taking steps to move retirees to Medicare. These are all good and necessary steps to control our costs. Our current employees and retirees will still have good healthcare, and we will have what is currently the best available way to control our healthcare costs.
This article is one of the better news articles about the economics of Massachusetts casinos. I completely agree that MA will not see anywhere near the economic benefit they are expecting and even those will be shortlived as neighboring states expand casinos and lotteries to retain their gamblers and draw some of ours. Unaccounted for is loss of economic activity as hundreds of millions of dollars move from local discretionary spending to casinos that are owned by out of state or even international companies.
While Massachusetts may add a few thousand relatively low paying casino jobs, it will come at the cost of widespread economic pain across tightly-knit New England, triggering thousands of job losses in neighboring states with significantly higher unemployment rates, industry observers warn.And hanging onto those tentative jobs gains could prove difficult as well, with budding signs of an interstate casino war that could lead eventually to an oversaturation of the market in Massachusetts and across New England, experts warn.
For a glimpse at the future of New England’s venture into casino gambling, one needs to look no farther than the Mid-Atlantic region, now embroiled in an ever escalating casino war since Pennsylvania legalized expanded gambling in 2004
I’ve written extensively about casinos and think they are lousy economic development. That horse is out of the barn however and I’m not going to sit here and post about them except to say “I told ya so” every now and then.
Casinos are not economic development – they are economic transference. Building a windmill tower is economic development. Losing $200 in a slot machine owned by a multinational corporation instead of having a nice dinner at a local restaurant is economic cannibalism.
My column in this week’s Middleboro Gazette revisits the prospect of a Mashpee Wampanoag casino and Middleboro’s role in the saga.
I’ve been closely following the Mashpee Wampanoag’s casino quest ever since they came to town almost five years ago. I have a unique perspective on their casino ambitions, at least compared to the coverage that I see in the media. The going wisdom is that the tribe has an inside track to a casino and faces some challenges. My feeling for a long time has been that the tribe has no chance for a casino and that Massachusetts would be out of it’s mind to give them one. They have no experience running an endeavor this large and the perception that they will inevitably get sovereign land is just plain wrong.
The only reason the Mashpee are discussed for a casino is that the state is afraid of the worst case scenario of the tribe getting sovereign land and building a casino that pays nothing to the state. I think that is a scenario that probably doesn’t exist anywhere in the country. If the tribe ever does get sovereign land – which I think is doubtful – the state could limit the size, scope, and even existence by manipulating the casino market. They could increase the number of licenses in SE mass, reduce the license fees, reduce the payments, and do other things so that there is no viable market to support a large tribal casino.
However, the tribe is still in the game for now because there is nothing I can do to prevent the state of Massachusetts from doing something stupid if it wants to. Tribal leadership is on a suicide spending spree that might do more damage to the tribe than anything the white man has done in recent years.
There is also the question of the agreement with Middleboro and the land owned by the former investors. I didn’t even mention that in the column due to lack of space. Whether the tribe gets a casino or not, Middleboro maintains that the original agreement is still valid. The tribe’s contractual obligation to Middleboro is around $100M not counting road work. That’s a guesstimate – I’d have to go back and re-read the IGA to be sure. The Middleboro agreement could turn into a very ugly and costly legal problem for the tribe.
The whole thing is messy and ugly. Same as it ever was.
I’ve added a link to Adam Bond’s campaign web site on the Blog Roundup. I will do the same if asked for any candidate running for state rep in the 12th Bristol District.
Note that the Blog Roundup works off of RSS feeds. If your site does not have one – I can’t promise that I’ll be able to include it – but will try. I may also add a sidebar to nemasket.net and will include any campaign that requests it.
Lastly – I invite candidates to send me a post to introduce themselves, discuss their positions, etc. I will post one such item for any candidate that asks me to. Thereafter I will probably submit another questionnaire to evaluate candidates who choose to answer based on their positions.
It’s good to see the town revisiting the Auburn Street illegal dump. I have some pictures from 4/2010 if you are interested.
The town wants Shawn M. Tracey to clean up Auburn Street which, officials say, he has used as a private junkyard for almost 20 years.“We’re going to hold their feet to the fire. They are operating a junkyard in an area they are not supposed to operate,” said Town Manager Charles J. Cristello.
The article quotes the town as saying that Mass DEP is not being very helpful. That is really annoying. This gigantic disaster is sitting right next to the Taunton River. Ridiculous.
My column in this week’s Gazette goes way out on a limb predicting widespread adoption of a cheap clean energy source – within the next two years:
If this is all true – and I think it is – the world is going to change dramatically and immediately in almost every conceivable way. From a local perspective, within a very short period of time, there will be no need for our gas and electric utility. Maybe some people will keep the service connected for the rare instance when their units break down, but even that will end if there is any charge for it. Eventually the MG&E will collapse with revenues that are insufficient to support their overhead. Their life may be extended somewhat because power plants will also convert to LENR, which will drop the cost of commercial power generation drastically. In the end the G&E will be dissolved – forced into obsolescence by ultra cheap home power generation.
LENR will prove to be the most disruptive technology since Oook discovered fire. The entire geopolitical and economic foundation of the planet is going to be in upheaval as oil quickly goes from being the lifeblood of the world economy to something that is used in relatively small quantities to make plastics and other synthetic materials.
I’ve already had a lot of feedback on this column and there are some interesting comments at the end of the article.
Pulling the plug on cable
If you happen to stumble upon this post, let me tell you what I’m doing to put an end to the monthly cash grab you guys have been pulling on me for years. Here is a post that explains my pain. Basically – you are charging me WAY TOO MUCH for cable. I would like to purchase only the channels I want – or better yet only the shows I want. I think $20 per month is plenty. I am currently paying close to $90 for basic service that includes 1 DVR, no Hi Def, and no premium channels.
My solution to replace cable is shaping up to be a combination of a set top box, broadcast HD and content that can be accessed from a computer/tablet. I created a shared Google doc and have asked everyone in the house to list the shows they watch, and see if they are available on Hulu Plus, NetFlix, Amazon Prime, or online. There is very little that we can’t get from another source.
Set top box
I recently bought a Roku box – a set-top box gives you a convenient way to stream content over the Internet. There are numerous devices that can do this to one level or another. To fully check the Roku’s offerings, I signed up for Hulu Plus. We already had streaming NetFlix, and Amazon Prime. Costs are:
| Service | Cost/month | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| Amazon Prime | $6.58 | Tons of free streaming movies and many TV shows for $1.99 per episode. This price includes free 2-day shipping for Amazon purchases. The 2-day shipping is nice to have but this service is really worth it when you add in the free video content. |
| NetFlix | $7.99 | Not as much online as DVD – but still plenty of content – both TV and movies |
| Hulu Plus | $7.99 | Has the vast majority of TV shows |
| TOTAL | $22.56 | I checked my calculator and am pretty sure that $22.56 is less than $90. |
Broadcast HD
Most of us haven’t used broadcast TV in years – choosing instead to go with cable TV from Comcast or Verizon. Several years ago, traditional analog broadcast TV was replaced by broadcast Digital TV. This is mostly Hi-Def broadcast TV. I recently bought this antenna to check out reception in this area. You can reception in your area but in practice I’m getting these channels with an indoor antenna. I’m sure I’d get dramatically better results with an exterior rooftop unit:
I’m currently looking for a DVR that can record from broadcast HD (ATSC). It is true that almost everything I watch is available via the set top box, or on line – meaning I can watch it whenever I want, but the DVR would let me record things from local broadcast TV that is not readily available online such as Chronicle.
Computer content
Any computer device(laptop, desktop, tablet, chromebook) can be plugged directly into a modern TV so that you can watch anything you can access with these devices. The best of all worlds is to connect via HDMI which gives you HiDef video and audio. This isn’t quite as convenient as a set-top box: You have to navigate to the show, plug into the TV, start the recording. This could be made more convenient with a wireless keyboard and mouse but will never be as easy is sitting your ass down, grabbing the remote, and commence drooling.
Downsides
So far, the biggest downside is the lack of an on-screen Show/Channel listing. Broadcast HD has no channel guide. I would have to look on the computer for TV guide or something. This makes shows sort of invisible. If there is a new episode of “The Walking Dead”, I have to make some effort to find it and watch it. This would be come less painful if I find a DVR that can record broadcast HD: Once I get it programmed the contents of the DVR become something like a listing of shows.
The other big downside is a lack of convenience. Since shows are coming from different sources, watching them is a bit more effort – particularly if the source is online. Even for the stuff that is on Hulu Plus via the set top box, I have to:
A bit more inconvenient yes. The big upside is that I don’t have a cable company arbitrarily changing my rates, adding mystery fees, changing channel lineups and charging me three times what their service is worth – currently over $1000 per year.
Those of you who are near my age – think back to TV when you were young. We had channels 2, 4, 5, 7, 12, 25, 38, 44, 56. The TV was black and white and you needed to *gasp* stand up and walk to the TV to change channels. You couldn’t record shows or watch anything that wasn’t broadcast over the air. The “inconvenience” I am talking about is nothing. I will still have more content than I could ever possibly watch. The only time I’ll ever have to get off my lazy ass is when I want to connect the laptop to watch online content.
If I had my way, I would cut off cable service today – but I want my family to buy into this plan – to buy into the idea that our family is better of with a $360 yearly TV bill instead of the current $1020. That’s a difference of $660 per year today – a difference that will get bigger and bigger year after year.
This could be you Middleboro - *Hiccup*
But back to you. Do you think the tribe will eventually get a casino?
My own feeling is that the odds of the tribe getting land taken into federal trust(aka reservation land, aka fee to trust land) is exceedingly slim for the foreseeable future. In the highly unlikely event that they do get trust land, the market will be saturated or could be made poisonous by changes to the casino law. According to my friends at Reel Wamps, tribal debt is running high as is dissatisfaction with the Cromwell regime by tribal elders.
One thing that wouldn’t suprise me is to see the tribe come back to Middleboro with a new offer. Time is very short to hit the deadline in the casino bill – July 31, 2012. In that time they have to buy land, have a vote in the host community, negotiate a compact, and make all sorts of financial disclosures. If they can’t get all that done, I could see them coming back to Middleboro and failing miserably. The land in Middleboro needs to be commercially zoned by way of a two-thirds vote a town meeting. I don’t believe the land would make it past MEPA, and frankly Middleboro has been burned once already by these guys. They still owe us at least $500K in planning money and the original deal included payments that were about one-third of what they should have been.
But that’s my take. What’s yours?
Winter sucks less … a lot less … if you have outdoor activities to do. That’s what I’ve found anyways.
I was never into downhill skiing – and even if I was, it’s not something the average person can do very often. Skating is good but it is rare that you have good ice – or any ice – outside a skating rink. Hiking and running are good and some years the weather really cooperates. Up until recently, I was running regularly – sometimes in shorts. Mountain biking is fun year round but like hiking and running it comes to an end when the snow comes.
Enter snowshoeing.
I always thought I’d like since I enjoy cross county skiing. Last year I went one time with a buddy who had an extra pair and really liked it. I bought a pair of Tubbs Timberline snowshoes. They ran about $120 are are probably lower middle of the range.
I did two consecutive days over the weekend with my cool doggie – Saturday at a nice trail system near my house and on Sunday out at the Taunton River Wildlife Management Area.
Bottom line: This is an easy sport with low risk of injury – and a lot of fun.
The Middleboro Conservation Commission has an opening for a new member. One of my secret sources from the bowels of town government outlined the time commitment and responsibilities and some general information about the ConCom. Step up and help out
One of my readers sent me a Boston Globe article that I found to be fascinating. Harvard Professor Roland Fryer applied statistical analysis on successful schools to see why they worked, then applied the resulting 5 principals to failing schools in Texas with dramatic results in just one year.
The magic recipe
Meet Bill Keating
Rich
This week’s Gazette offering is a review of the columns I wrote in the last year. Bumpkin’s Corner graces the Middleboro Gazette every two weeks – its mission is to alienate every resident of Middleboro and Lakeville. I’m well on track to accomplish that goal with my incite insight on town politics.
Of all the issues covered in the last year, I would like to see Middleboro take a closer look at switching town employees and retirees to GIC and investigate the efficacy of expanding the use of call firefighters. Does the Quinn Bill still make sense? Are we getting the best bang for our buck with capital spending? As the old saying goes, if you watch your pennies the dollars will take care of themselves.
The biggest controversy of last year was the Safer grant in my estimation. We all agree that Middleboro has a manpower shortage in the fire department and I think we should explore the expanded use of call firefighters. Since the SAFER grant was rejected, the prospect of adding over $1M in full time career firefighters is a non-starter. If we truly have a safety issue – the only viable alternative is expanded use of call firefighters.
I also want to see us look at adopting GIC. I’d have to see the numbers to believe that it wouldn’t be a benefit – particularly the savings that would be achieved by switching retired town employees to Medicare as required by GIC.
Earlier this year I wrote a three-part gripe about the Middleboro school system and ended up looking for some resources to supplement my kids education at home. We used Study Island – an online MCAS test prep site – which I found pretty good at test prep but not really great at teaching the material. That only makes sense because teaching the material is not the goal of the site. A few months ago I stumbled on Khan Academy (thanks Dave D.) and I have to tell you that this site is nothing short of unbelievable. They have thousands – literally thousands – of video lessons covering dozens of subjects. We’ve been using it for a month or so – both kids like it about as much as you could expect. Jake is doing Algebra this year and has gotten a little behind. Last night we covered Equations 2, Equations 3, Linear Equations 4, and Solving Inequalities. Zach and I are working on percents, decimals, fractions and stuff like that.
The site is totally free and you can login with your existing google or facebook account. Amazing. Here is a talk by the founder if you’re interested – or just check out the sample video below.
Gotta love the live human lips superimposed on the minimalist animation. Sadly I can remember watching old Clutch when I was very young. It was made in 1959 and probably primitive even by the 1966 standards – when I was watching it.
Check out the look on Romney’s face when he challenges Perry to a $10,000 bet. His face has raging ***hole written all over it. This is one of those “Duke in tank” moments. It’s all over Mitt.
A while back I explained why I thought that the legalization of casinos in Massachusetts would not lead to a casino in Middleboro – tribal or commercial. There is 50 foot brick wall between the Mashpee Wampanoag and a tribal casino and that wall has Carcieri v. Salazar spray painted on it — just to left of “for a good time call Bumpkin”.
Nearly every news article on casinos in Massachusetts have been woefully uninformed on the mechanics of tribal gaming. Finally in today’s Globe, Paul McMorrow has an article with a more sober view on the likelihood of a tribal casino.
LXDE - Light X11 Desktop Environment
For years that was blackbox and its descendant fluxbox. Just recently I switched to LXDE – the Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment and I’m liking it. This is not a dig at *box. Fluxbox, blackbox, openbox really pop. They only use a few megabytes of memory – probably less than 10 and literally POP into existence when you login. LXDE is a bit more fancy, a bit slower to start, but still very easy on older hardware. It uses a LOT more memory then fluxbox but a lot less than Gnome. I’m enjoying the change for now and love the fact that I’m free to try new desktop environments. I’ve used fwm, fvwm, olwm, olvwm, mwm, twm, Window Maker, Enlightenment, Afterstep, blackbox, fluxbox, openbox, CDE, KDE, XFCE, Gnome, Unity and probably a bunch of others I’ve forgotten.
‘Tis well.
Angry bumpkin will be back in full force this week in my Gazette column this coming Thursday. It will discuss the gutting of the grammar school music program and general failure of the schools to change their utterly unacceptable MCAS scores.
Starting next year, the instrument music program will be done after school – a move that is sure to kill participation and thus destroy all music in Middleboro since the grammar school is the feeder for our middle and high school musicians.
Nothing amuses me more than watching the hordes come out of the wood work for an issue that has zero effect on their daily lives like the kerfuffle over calling a Christmas Tree a Holiday Tree.
You want to call it a Christmas tree – go ahead. You want to call it a Holiday tree that’s fine with me. Heck call it “Billy” if you want to.
Whatever you call it – everybody should spend less time worrying about things that don’t matter and focus on things that do – like local, state, and federal budget deficits, education, the environment, and about a billion other things. It’s nice that people have the limited mental capacity to get worked up over the difference between “Holiday tree” and “Christmas tree”. With a little more intellectual effort we might be able to start addressing the real issues facing the country and the world.
Now that the casino law has passed, I have a feeling of Deja Vu watching various towns react to the prospect of having a giant development dropped on them.
And I pity them.
When faced with the prospect of a something that has the potential to radically alter the character of the town, people get testy. As large developments go, casinos seem to spark more emotions than other projects. Middleboro was torn apart by the proposed Mashpee Wampanoag casino and four years later things are still not totally back to normal. Getting there but not there yet. Myself and my wife were subject to harsh treatment at the hands of pro-casino residents – something I still struggle with.
For towns that are potential casino sites: Strap yourselves in. You’re in for a wild and unpleasant ride as the spectre of money pits neighbor against neighbor and sends common sense packing.
Anti-casino web sites are popping up – including nofoxborocasino.com. They have a good looking web site and a Facebook page with 600 friends. Good luck guys.
Panorama Theme by 
Themocracy
