Latest from the council.

Last night, 10/7/09, the council passed the budget for 2010. I did in fact vote in favor this year where I voted against last years vote for 2009 budget. Last year the 2009 budget (4.35mill) had an increase of 6% and I stated from the outset of my campaign that I wanted to reduce the budget and stated that fact at last years vote when I said nay. This years budget (3.99mill) reflects a 8% reduction which brings it back to the level from before the 2008 year of 4.1mill. This is in no small part a result of the property tax cap the state legislature voted in. I would have liked to have gotten this done ALL on our own without the forced reduction from the cap. It will have a even further effect on future budgets of 2011 and 2012. Hopefully by then we will have figured out the best way to run the town for the least amount of money.
With this in mind I will continue to push the town to be more frugal on spending of tax dollars on large engineering work and legal reviews that eat up the budget so that we have nothing left to do the project needed by the town.
One example of changes made is that the town used to contract out for cleaning services at a cost of a few thousand a year and this is now being done in house by staff and we reduced those few thousand down to about 1 thousand for supplies.
I also moved and had pass a motion to have 5-6 smaller road projects in town repaired this year now that we have finally gotten the quotes back. We have about 200k left in the mvh fund for road repairs and we will be getting these 5-6 projects done for a bit less than that. My hope is to see the balance of that be used for draingage issues around town that are inexpensive enough to get them paid for.
Next year we will have to look at a lot of bigger drainage issues around town before we do to much more road work. I feel that with these project this year we will be ok for a bit and we can try to get back on the capital inprovement plan time table.
The areas this fall will be the large chunk of cobblefield way that is desintegrating and the roundabout circle in VBV. Also the road that runs behind CVS from the back of the post office past the park and around to washington which looks like a war zone and actually IS part of the town road system. These areas will be ground, patched and resurfaced.
In the next few weeks I will be negotiating the fire service contract for the next 2 years. we have a deal for this year but need to work on the future. They are looking for a increase in fees as currently town residents pay less per home than non town residents. I am not sure we will be able to accomodate their full request as we have budget reductions as they have cost inflations.

Any questions call or email me.
Thanks
Joe