Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Water Over The Transom

The Pieman has awoken and he sent the following:

At tonight's town board work session there was a discussion of the need to raise water rates to pay for infrastructure maintenance. The recommended increase comes to 20% above current rates. While that may sound high, we were told that it works out to an average hike of about $44 a year. This would be the first increase in six years, the second in 16 years.

Part of the discussion involved the fact that sometime soon the Village of Woodbury would be taking over responsibility for water and perhaps the increase should be left for the village board to deal with.

The problem with that is that if we went that route, I would expect some group in town to start screaming "The town kept the rates down for years, now, as soon as the village takes over, they hit us with a huge rate hike."


So, the Uncle asks, in Woodbury, is paranoia a sign of mental health?

23 comments:

Anonymous said...

The big question comes us is: What were past Boards doing about maintaining the infrastructure - to include water, sewage, roads, buildings, etc which is now causing a bond of approx 2 million for sewage maintanence and now a proposed 20% jump in water. Talk about fuzzy math. It makes one wonder what past budget hikes were for...besides inflation.

Anonymous said...

well i hope they get this all figured out before we see sewage flowing down the streets. there is only so much a bandaid can do.

Anonymous said...

That was the Conroy way, out of sight out of mind. In the four years she was running the Town did she spend any money on infrastructure ?

Anonymous said...

nope so now we cant blame the new crew

Anonymous said...

She never spent any money on the parks, sewer,roads,and now we are all going to have to pay. Over fours years worth of infrastructure was never taken care of by her. I will not blame the Village if they have to raise taxes.

Anonymous said...

All this Sheila bashing, will the current Town Board please stop posting as anonymous.

Anonymous said...

The infrastructure has been neglected for many years. By the time Sheila became supervisor the infrastructure was beyond what it should be.
She made some effort to begin fixing things, but you can't expect in four years the town will fix everything!
We could go back 20 years and blame Till, or 10 years and blame J Caruso. What did they do? These things didn't fall apart yesterday.

Everybody wants the best roads etc, but nobody wants their taxes going up!

Anonymous said...

You're right. It appear to be an epedemic due to past inactivity. So when our deficit rises while curing this disease with large short-term doses and not the steady bite-size influx that should have been, the Woodbury public will have to suck it up. Too long Peter has been robbed to pay Paul. Now Paul wants it back. It's the same thing we'll be seeing in the not to distant future with the state and federal governments as well.

Anonymous said...

I wonder who it is blaming Conroy...hmmmm....those pesky varmints just won't go away, no matter how many times the public votes against them. Oh well, at least there are some intelligent people posting the truth...the infrastructure has been going to hell for years, including during the Baird years! Jay probably would have addressed it, but didn't really have the chance, and during Ted's tour, there was too much chaos to get anything done! And so, unfortunately it landed in Sheila's lap, and four years isn't enough to get anything done in this town...especially when your constantly under fire from Ralph and his posse who sat/sit on the board (Holly being the worst!!)

Anyway, according to our current leader, Big John, he seems to be "the only one" and/or "the first one" to attempt anything remotely beneficial for the town, so I think we should allow him and the current board to "have at it" as they say, and lets all just sit back and see where this goes.

As for the Village government, why saddle them with past mistakes...they have enough crap to wade through just to get up and running....again, all thanks to those pesky varmints. They shouldn't become the dumping ground for our current Town Board, or for past mistakes.

Anonymous said...

What's going on on Turner Rd? Is it closed? Oh, I forgot! It's another Conroy Disaster. Will the school bus pick up the kids? Resale value just went way down for that neighborhood. Conroy only cares about the developers. Cosimos is proof positive!!!

Anonymous said...

let's get something straight. although i am not a great fan of the past supervisor sheila conroy, she certainly did not create this mess. as a matter of fact she was responsible for setting money aside to fix the ailing infrastructure. the water dept. has been on the brink of collapse long before sheila came on board. the sewer dept. also falling apart. the roads needed fixing long before sheila, the parks infrastructure was shot. just look at the pond and the rotting canopies. the town hall has been falling down for 20 years. poor sheila didn't have enough money to put a bandaid one it. what with the salaries of the employees bleeding the town dry, how much could you hit up the taxpayers for. not one supervisor or town board before sheila had the cohones to stand up and bite the bullet. they just passed it on to the next board. sheila did most certainly allocate funds. do your homework and look as the past budgets. this conversation just seems like an excuse for john burke and mike queenan to pass the blame so john doesn't look like he is spending all the cash so freely. just look at what he has spend already. all new computers for the employees. brand new no parking signs all over town. how much was spent on town hall posting 30 no parking signs in their parking lot. now he wants to complain about the other supervisors. hey john, do what you do best, spend money.

Anonymous said...

let's get something straight. although i am not a great fan of the past supervisor sheila conroy, she certainly did not create this mess. as a matter of fact she was responsible for setting money aside to fix the ailing infrastructure. the water dept. has been on the brink of collapse long before sheila came on board. the sewer dept. also falling apart. the roads needed fixing long before sheila, the parks infrastructure was shot. just look at the pond and the rotting canopies. the town hall has been falling down for 20 years. poor sheila didn't have enough money to put a bandaid on it. what with the salaries of the employees bleeding the town dry, how much could you hit up the taxpayers for at one time. not one supervisor or town board before sheila had the cohones to stand up and bite the bullet. they just passed it on to the next board. sheila did most certainly allocate funds. she set money aside each budget for repairs and replacement vehicles. do your homework and look at the past budgets. this conversation just seems like an excuse for john burke and mike queenan to pass the blame so john doesn't look like he is spending all the cash so freely. just look at what he has spent already. all new computers for the employees. brand new no parking signs all over town. how much was spent on town hall posting 30 no parking signs in their parking lot. now he wants to complain about the other supervisors. hey john, do what you do best, spend money.

Anonymous said...

Excuse me but Shelia was the one who gave the town workers 4% and 5%not John. Shelia was not infavor of spending any parkland fees to fix anything.Let us not forget she was also on the town board and never spent any money to fix anything then. John is only spending because she didnt!

Anonymous said...

again, john is spending because that is what he does, and he will continue to spend, spend, and spend .

Anonymous said...

Morons...go pull the records and educate yourselves. Learn EXACTLY what parkland fees can and CANNOT be used for before you start pointing fingers at Sheila. Look at the lawsuits regarding use of parkland fees, etc. Also, educate yourselves about the whole Cosimo's fiasco, and how the Planning Board, with Shiela on it, thought the whole concept was a DISASTER, and voted it down, only to be hit with another infamous lawsuit, of which the Town LOST....so again, do your damn homework before you start talking your worthless trash. Why don't you go back and look at what the board did under Bob Till's direction concerning the Cornell property...hell the man wanted to give it to the Town, and they said NO!!!!! Perhaps, we wouldn't have even had to address Woodbury Junction if they had taken him up on his offer. All you Monday morning quarterbacks need to get a life, and realize that all you do when you spew misinformation is make yourselves look like jerks.

As for John Burke, he needs to step down off his mighty pedestal and realize that we live in a DEMOCRACY...he alone is not in charge, nor will he EVER be. That is why there are 4, yes 4 other members on the board!

Anonymous said...

The truth over the matter of the pond is that if it wasn't for Sheila and Gerri, the pond would be closed. They moved the pond project forward and was very careful in spending park land fees for that project. they can't spend that money on anything they want!
Go ahead and blame sheila, she Knows that she was a good supervisor and so do 1300 voters.

Why don't you pick on someone else. Nobody buys into your lies about sheila letting the town infrastructure go to pot. SHE WAS ONLY SUPERVISOR FOR 4 YEARS.

As far as the employees getting paid to much. That is also a lie. Go foil their saleries Don Siebold. What do you want to pay them? $9.50 per hour?

Also why would someone put John B. and Mike Q. in the same categorie? You have no idea what your talking about. Honestly I wish you would shut your pie hole.

Anonymous said...

Town Employees bleeding the town dry... now thats funny. i dont even make enough to live in the town that i am expected to service 24 hours a day. what a crock..

Anonymous said...

Don't leave Mike A out he votes no every time and does not want to spend any money. Mike A and Mike Q never and I mean never spend!


Vote Bo in 2008!!!!

Anonymous said...

How much did Shelia Conroy spend on the COMPREHENSIVE PLAN? It was over $500 000. Another big mystery like the roler rink. Beleive me we will never get a staight answer on that. As far as the pond goes you can thank Gerry for that.

Anonymous said...

There are only three dependable things in life. Anything wrong in Washington is Clinton's fault. Anything wrong in Woodbury is Sheila's fault. And anything wrong at my house is MY fault.

Anonymous said...

Geez, I never knew that with a 5 member board, Shiela was given the authority to just spend whatever way she pleased! BE REAL....even a first grader would have a problem with your logic. A supervisor is NEVER given the authority to do that, and certainly someone as honest as Shiela would not even make that attempt. So why don't you go spread your malicious crap elsewhere. It's clear that you just don't like her, and that's old news. Let's focus on what our annointed savior, John Burke is doing, and see if he can do any better!

Anonymous said...

What I'd like to know is how much did we spend on the Comprehensive Plan? Was it 400 000 or 500 000 or 600 000 or 700 000 thousand dollars?

Anonymous said...

The Town has spent about 140,000 on the Comprehensive Plan. Big deal, that is what it costs. Go check what other towns have spent recently on updating or rewriting their master plans to comp plans.

OHH only woodbury spends too much, only woodbury has too much traffic, only woodbury has residential and commercial development and let's not forget it's ALL sheila's fault.
Get a life and give us a break!