Watching the SC meeting and 2 public speakers question why all the cuts are from the school side while the city side budget is growing. It's very simple - appeal to people's fear (no money = bad schools) and they will give in and vote for an override. Sneaky, but it won't work because, people are already seeing through their lame lies.
First clean the swamp in Melrose schools just fire them or let them GO! Second the police station would be the first to spend the override money on.
Certainly no debt exclusion or override for school money until the current administration and its cheerleaders are cleaned out. Proposals for the police station should be tightly drawn in detail to prevent repurposing of budget to other matters and so it that there's clear accountability for the project and the accuracy of the estimates provided to the voters being asked to approve it - and only after the middle school bond is paid off and the current boondoggle that is the water/sewer miasma is reformed properly.
And, as a gesture of goodwill, a fully independent forensic review of the city hall culture that allowed the cemetery scandal to blossom under its watch and be hushed up with minimal critical oversight by the BOA. (Oh, and while we're at it, uncover the residue of, um, deposits made to the cemetery by a former city insider & son, now deceased.) Why is that related? Because it speaks to how City Hall can't be trusted unless there's LOTSA sunshine shed into all of its cozy crevices. (Newbies to Melrose may not understand, but Melrose city government has a long sorry history of cozy hushing up of embarrassing things and covering up for fellow insiders.)
that being said it makes you wonder what the new fire chief did for the dough:joy:
That’s just unbelievable.
Watching for new leadership in the City of Melrose .
Oh what fun, someone actually referred to the now deceased former alderman and some oil tanks of the firefighter offspring that are allegedly deposited where the sun don't shine. And of course there are other co-conspirators who have yet to be exposed. Mueller would have a field day with the stench of this Melrose swamp! Then there's the totally illegal Emergency Fund being run through the city coffers with exactly zero accountability, and votes having been bought with payments to rent/mortgage of certain favorites, Shaw's and Target gift cards given out willy-nilly, again straight from the city coffers (absolutely illegal and impossible to document/verify legally as anything being channeled through legitimate tax-exempt entities would have been). All this and so much more (Retirement Board shenanigans, school system boondoggles galore, and on and on) under the "watchful eye" (right!) of the oily CFO and all the RD's dutiful dwarves. The filth and slime of all the Revolving Fund slush funds has allowed RD to buy the sycophant votes, but at some point he must have figured it was too close to being exposed. Watching the school budget fiasco, it becomes more and more clear (for those who pay attention and don't drink the koolaid) just how desperately Melrose needs a full forensic audit!
Problem Solved. Put 10-15 teachers on the water department payroll. Then jack up the water bills again. Easy Peazey. I would use the science teachers. They most likely teach about environmental issues and water retention.
Great idea. Does Melrose even have any actual science or math teachers remaining, though? They've eliminated the individual Science and Math Dept Chairs, along with others, doing a hack job at pretending to have an academically viable structure. The MHS cheerleading idiot parents (Darwin is very misnamed!) seem to think that everything is EXCELLENT in all caps, so maybe the prevailing thought (if one could call it that) is that MHS students are already so great they don't need individual department chairs for trivial subject areas like math or science or social studies or the arts. You can be sure there would be hell to pay if cuts were ever made to the athletics department, though, for these dimwit parents. They are the sort who persist in thinking that their geniuses are going to get sports scholarships and end up in the NFL, after all, since obviously even they know (or should) that the SAT scores will be pathetic overall, and that costly private or state schools are typically the only options for the majority of even the top 20 percent. Some are even deluded into thinking that MHS' Taymore-blessed "pathways" will lead the prodigies straight from Intro to Guitar at MHS straight through to Broadway and Hollywood and Carnegie Hall. It's all such a fool's mess. Go Red Raiders! Make sure you have your "Tommyhawks"! (direct Taymore quoted misusage). Melrose students are so screwed.
What up with the $700,000 accounting error? Love the way that was slipped in as if it weren't a problem.
Hey, it's only a 1.5% mistake.
700k here, 700k there - pretty soon you're talking real money.
That's called sarcasm, folks, for those who didn't get it. How much did they "find" last year? Wasn't it 850k or something like that?
The first public participant must have said "I want" about 10 times. You could easily substitute "more money" for every item on her list. The second speaker was a little less cryptic. She at least came right out and said it. And on, and on, and on.
What part of I can't afford it do you people not understand? We've thrown millions and millions of dollars at the schools and it has been completely squandered on bells and whistles. They proclaim to be proponents of education and fiscal responsibility, and yet they display no understanding of either.
An earlier post made a suggestion that I at first found way out of the box, but the more I think about it, the more it makes a certain sense. "Instead of a citywide override, institute a surcharge on the parents of kids currently in the system. Then the parents of the kids who are in the system currently would be footing the bill. When your kid ages out of or abandons the system, you are then no longer liable for the surcharge."
Indeed, that's been the hiding place for Dolan and the aldermen since they discovered how to circumvent Prop 2 1/2. The Water and Sewer fund now has more employees with nothing to do with water water and sewer services than the opposite. We now have rates 50 percent higher than the average of the other 65 MWRA communities. In previous times, this would be called corruption. Once Dolan realized he had sunk the Titanic, he took the first lifeboat to Lynnfield. Anybody who supports an override is basically a blind unfortunate stuck on the bow. The city desperately needs a captain who heeds warnings and changes course.
Another override will fail again because the school committee and Mayor cannot justify it. I blame our school super, Taymore, for a lack of vision and leadership in looking how best to use the budgeted money and to look for creative ways to share costs with other area school systems. Melrose has done this with our health dept and veterans services, yet the school system refuses to consider these options. Based on the vote last Tuesday by the school committee, some members are getting fed up with Taymore - hopefully, they will be strong enough to convince other members to support major changes.
I’m sure an audit will expose the funding shellgame being played.
The PR Machine is still managing to keep hold of these well-meaning but naive parents, feeding them just enough to let them think they are having an effect and that they can feel proud being part of a "positive" process. They don't realize how they have been co-opted and are being used. They don't realize that they are only being given just enough information to make them Believe.There is chatter around about having another override. I personally would like this to be voted on when we have a Mayor in office that the residents have voted on.
Today the Senate passed a bill 38-0 that massively changes school funding. It's exoected to pass the House as well. Before any override gets on a ballot, let's see how the new formula affects Melrose. Supposedly it leans heavily towards municipalities that have maxed out their tax base.
$68,000
Jun 11, 2018 - 4:03PM
Quote
Sixty eight grand in legal fees to outside council Nuttle, McAvoy...see 7.8a of the SC agenda packet of 6/12/18 for civil rights cases. OUCH!!!
City loses many principals in three years again. Melrose school officials to tackle the decline of principals, teachers, paras, guidance counselor and administration. Bullying of Teachers Pervasive in Many Schools. Workplace bullying is on the rise. Unfortunately, it's even more prevalent in the field of education. It's going to take years to get back what has been neglected to the students of Melrose. The parents at the Winthrop school do not want another asst. principal. Would rather see a principal and another teacher with experience. Catherine Clarke where are you now for all the Bullying in the Melrose Workplace. The MTA, NEA, MEA and Union members can not do one dame thing about it sadly. The title changes of a lot of staff is not helping the workers who gave up over twenty five years of their life and now this.
:flag-us: :flag-us: How could you have known on June 14th it was FLAG DAY in the city of Melrose. No flags from the city or the realtors. No they just like taking your money and making up lies about the school districts and how wonderful the city is.:flag-us:Is this part of the budget or the override.
Anti-Trump statement.
warranted
WRONG
How did a political party become a cult? Scary!
Keep listening to CNN you weirdo.
Sounds like the last few post were the same a$$...Go away you are pathetic like the rest.
Let's not forget the 2-faced phony, HRC, who said in 2014:
“We have to send a clear message, just because your child gets across the border, that doesn't mean the child gets to stay,” Clinton said at the time. “So, we don't want to send a message that is contrary to our laws or will encourage more children to make that dangerous journey.”
You still With Her?
And then stock the swamp. No, wait a minute, wasn't that supposed to be drain the swamp?