Enterprise interview, take two

Last week I was interviewed over the phone for The Enterprise by their Easton-area reporter Vicki-Ann Downing. Vicki did her homework and compiled some personal facts about me, read this blog and my Facebook pages and came with a group of questions that would be interesting to Easton voters; all of which put me at ease in what might otherwise been a nerve wracking experience. We spent nearly 25 minutes talking about the issues facing the Town, and then she let me speak about my benefit portrait event “Pictures from Home”, which I really appreciated since that work is probably the best thing I get to do all year. Most of the information that was printed in the interview I have no quarrels with, but there are a few items I think need clarification. Whether it is because of the limitations of the available printed page space or a misunderstanding of some of my answers, some of the quotes are out of context and I’m glad I can address them here.

First off, I would like to make sure that people understand that I am serving as the President of the Friends of Frothingham Hall, along with a group of eight others. WE founded this group together; I certainly didn’t do it alone, and others on the board have done much more of the footwork than I have. The idea of establishing a friends group was born out my time serving on the Finance Committee. I was very excited that the Council on Aging (COA) and the Recreation Department (Rec) would be moving into a great new space that would let them offer terrific new programs to the community. The only problem? The Town may not be able to easily pay for the needed renovations to this town-owned building, certainly not in the near future, and program expansion is most likely impossible.

All town budgets are necessarily affected by the drop in local aid and Town receipts, and are likely to face cuts this coming fiscal year. Rec is facing a situation where they may be forced off the Town budget entirely. The COA, Rec and the Library are all targets for budget cuts this year, and as the article correctly states, I think we absolutely need to look to private fundraising for these groups instead of raising taxes when times are this tough. One thing in the article I did not appreciate, since it does not represent my views, is that the Library budget needs to be targeted “particularly” as stated by Vicki. Preliminary budgets are due at the end of the month and we will review them in FinCom in February, and hopefully any cuts will be minor.

Regarding the Shovel Shop’s redevelopment, I think you will get a far clearer view of my take on the Town’s portion of Beacon’s financing if you read my post below (“Shovel Shop plan gets support from selectmen”) than just relying on this Enterprise article. In short, I trust the CPC with making the critical decision of going forward with the project. They have the cash to fund their piece and should use it for this project if they see fit to. My argument is that no Town BONDING ought to be used in the financing. Again, read my post below for the long answer because the wording in the article is incorrect.

Finally, I don’t think any of my votes as a Selectman would merely be “a symbolic vote in the minority”, nor do I think that my votes will necessarily be contrary to the rest of the Board’s members on many issues. That particular statement came when talking about the Selectmen’s vote on the Shovel Shop plans at their meeting on 1/11/10.

I haven’t seen the article online yet, but you can find it in the Jan. 16 paper version of The Enterprise on page 3. If I see it pop up at www.enterprisenews.com, I’ll link to it here.

Thanks again Vicki for talking the time to interview me, and thank you all for reading this post and being active in my campaign!