Tuesday, October 20, 2009

THURSDAY NOV 5TH --FIRST MEETING ON BUDGET AT LIBRARY

The Town Board & I will be holding a series of meetings on the 2010 budget after the budget is submitted. The meetings will be held around town.
The first meeting:
THursday, November 5th at 7-9 PM at the Greenburgh library.

15 comments:

Disgruntled Greenburgher said...

How convenient! You will hold the most important meetings of the year only AFTER being safely re-elected.
Great political move - bad governance move.

hal samis said...

It is what is is. There are no others running. The question going forward is what will come out of these meetings? Will the public, those that actually fund the operations, be allowed to participate?

What the ground rules are need to stated so that that the public needs to know what to expect.

How are these meetings to be different from the Departments appearing at work sessions?

hal samis said...

restated for clarity

It is what is is. There are no others running. The question going forward is what will come out of these meetings? Will the public, those that actually fund the operations, be allowed to participate?

What the ground rules are needs to be stated so that the public knows what to expect.

How are these meetings to be different from the Departments appearing at work sessions?

Anonymous said...

This is what is supposed to happen.

1. On or before October 30th, a tentative budget shall be filed in the office of the Town Clerk.

2. On or before November 10th, the Town Clerk shall present the tentative budget to the Town Board.

3. The Town Board shall review the tentative budget and make such changes, alterations and revisions as it shall consider advisable and which are consistent with law. Upon completion of such review, the tentative budget and any modifications as approved by the town Board shall become the preliminary budget.


4. On or before December 10th, the Town Board shall hold a public hearing on the preliminary budget.

5. After the public hearing, the Town Board may further change, alter and revise the preliminary budget, subject to provisions of the law.

6. On or before December 20th, the Town Board must adopt a budget.

First, note that the Town Board must vote on a preliminary budget.
Second, these meetings are not in lieu of the public hearing that must be held. There may or may not be transcripts of these meetings. Who will be in attendance at all of these meetings – all Department Heads ?

hal samis said...

Beware of the kindness of stranglers.

Apparently the Library is not the subject of this meeting but is merely the innkeeper providing a room.

One wonders about why budget meetings need be held away from Town Hall as though nearby residents would be walking to the neighborhood location at night.

Once in a car, couldn't they drive the great distance from the Library to Town Hall? Greater perhaps for some, less for others.

One reason is that these meetings won't be broadcast so whatever damage is done post election is limited to those attending.

Our open government maintains a very precise measurement of how far the open door is to be left open.

And given that the intention is to make these meetings take on the composition of "unofficial", one wonders why, if the interested Town Board is to appear, they are afraid to go all the way and make it a Public Hearing, something that the taxpayers would prefer. A little thing like maintaining written records...

That is written even while acknowledging that the Town Board ignores what is said at Public Hearings.

Anonymous said...

THESE MEETINGS SHOULD BE TELEVISED.

WE AS TAXPAYERS SHOULD KNOW STEP BY STEP WHAT IS BEING SAID AND DONE.

You have worked against us for too long.
Now is the time to fight back with all our might .
If you have nothing to hide and as you have said we have open government televise the proceedings.

Anonymous said...

Ye who read and post on this blog are a minority and not terribly organized at that. Feiner could care less.

Anonymous said...

You're not telling us something that we don't know.
He has caused so much friction amongst the residents that it is hard to get together to fight the Feiner system --for now.

But our pleas to the higher government officials will not go unanswered.
He who laughs last will laugh best.

Anonymous said...

Feiner prove us wrong and allow the budget meetings to be televised from town hall.
You say that you believe in open government well let's see how far your beliefs take you.

So far you're heading for hell so let's see if you can redeem yourself.

Anonymous said...

How many police officer's work inside of police Hq's everyday? 20-30? that's obscene. put them on the road!

hal samis said...

Here's a new scam. The Library is distributing information to patrons for the purpose of raising their consciousness and support for a Library budget request INCREASE of 1% Just $31,548 more than 2009. Right?

Wrong. Taxes are going up. The Town Board is requesting across the board DECREASES from its departments of 3 to 5%.

This means that relative to the other town departments they are really looking for 4 to 6% more.

And don't get fooled by the bigger Library, more mouths to feed bs.
The "doubled in size" building is bigger only in the size of the meeting room (no additional personnel), childrens room (no additional personnel), "back office" space (no new full-time personnel) and the acres of wasted space throughout the building. If they haven't had enough money to buy books, dvds and cds in the past (and they indicate that they are reducing this amount further in 2010), then all they have done is spread them over larger areas. Given that in terms of productivity, the Library has always fostered a bloated staff roster, what the Library could easily do is make cut-backs either in body count or reducing the hours from part-time staff. And note that they've added a program coordinator for $$28,353.
Not bad pay for a part-time job to perform secretarial duties.
Only at the Library.

Anonymous said...

PAUL ARE YOU PAYING ATTENTION TO WHAT SAMIS IS COMMENTING.

I HOPE YOU READ THE ITEMS CAREFULLY TO SEE HOW THE LIBRARY PEOPLE HAVE RAPED THE CITIZENS.

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.

keep it civil - yes to samis said...

raped?
thats a bit extreme.

lets keep it civil

and the smartest thing paul could do is get samis on the library board

Anonymous said...

How is putting Samis on the library board smart? What would you look to him to do...fire some of the "bloated" staff? I don't recall ever hearing of anything Samis has done business-related - other than his ability to use a computer. Big deal.
If he gets on the board, it will only be a matter of time before he is thrown off.

Hal maybe if you shut up for 30 seconds and did some research - ON YOUR ON and not FOILING stuff that just costs this town money - you would rethink your self serving blogs.

And stop lying although I think that is impossible for you. You are so jealous of the library board it is LAUGHABLE.



Samis picks targets he thinks he can get away with being obnoxious to....

Anonymous said...

You yet again reveal your paranoid, small minded nature - there is no scam, Hal. Everything is totally above board and you know it. You are just mad they don't want you to play in the same sandbox.

And who ever posted that about "rape" and this library board should be ashamed of themselves. Shows how very little you know about the history and what actually happens.

And yes Hal, it's me - the same person you called "stupid" in another blog. Now you are starting to bore me as every single post is a paranoic rant; it is scary that some people actually agree with you. Maybe you should hook up with them and form your own board: Fiction lovers of America or 1001 ways to come up with conspiracy theories and spread lies.