There’s a saying that goes,
“Those who don’t know how to be grateful on small things does not know how to appreciate big things”.

The Writer and Founder of the Theosophical Society, W. Q. Judge, said; Remember it is the little things the work is done through.

Surely we all recall this little ditty.

For the want of a nail the shoe was lost,
For the want of a shoe the horse was lost,
For the want of a horse the rider was lost,
For the want of a rider the battle was lost,
For the want of a battle the kingdom was lost—
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

After an appreciable period of time, I wrote to our new Mayor. After all, City Councilor Stephen N. Zanni agrees.(with the new vehicle policy) “I fully support this new policy,” Zanni said.

Requesting an explanation as to why the Mayors Car was not emblazoned with the Seal of the City of Methuen. The Motor Vehicle Policy, established by his predecessor was clear that all vehicles should be so marked. ( some exceptions do apply)

[Please let me digress for a moment.
I have written to the Mayor using his official email address. I have never received an acknowledgement that the mayor received any email from me. Word on the street is that the Mayor does not read any email addressed to him. He receives only "filtered" email from his staff. I guess the internet is not a door that is part of the Open Door policy.]

My email stated;

Dear Mr. Mayor,

I ask the question, why isn’t the car you use as Mayor marked with the City Seal as required by EXECUTIVE ORDER NO. 013-2008, section 3.  “All vehicles owned by the City of Methuen shall be lettered with the City of Methuen seal, as well as having municipal plates.”

Thank you for your reply.

After a period of time I received the following explanation;

“…the car that the mayor is currently driving is an old undercover car that we are recycling from the police department.  This car was not in the police rotation at the time and was the best fiscal option for the city, as per section three of the EO as it is an undercover car it does not need to be lettered and can have standard plates.”
There is a section of the Executive Order [EO] which does state;

section 3. All vehicles owned by the City of Methuen shall be lettered with the City of Methuen seal, as well as having municipal plates. All undercover, unmarked and surveillance public safety vehicles are not required to be lettered and may have standard plates.
I did not believe the Mayor needed an undercover, unmarked or surveillance public safety vehicle. He should have been excluded from the exemption.

I wrote back and asked “when will this car be returned to the Police rotation?
It has not been in the rotation for a number of years.
If it is, in effect, the Mayors car, it should be lettered and have Municipal plates.
When it is returned to rotation it can be properly designated as an undercover car again.”

The response was my concerns would be looked into.

This conversation took place in March. So I was waiting for some further response.

Then I looked through the Vendors Reports posted on the City website.

What a surprise to find the following invoices from January.
Keith Burdin Auto Cleaning
Account # 01-3575-5700-34766
Account Description Equipment Parts
Invoice # 3517
Additional Description Detail Mayors Car #405. See invoices.
Payment, Check # and date: $175.00, 119550, 1/28/2012

There were others, listed below.
3575-5700-34766
Equipment Parts
8688
Aligment for mayors car #405.
$40.00, 119546, 1/28/2012

Home Depot Inc.
01-3575-5700-34766
Equipment Parts
26854163713
Parts Mayors Car shop.
$14.75,119475, 1/21/2012

Caruso, Carmello
01-3575-5700-34766
Equipment Parts
303
Parts 405 Mayor.
$40.00, 119674, 2/4/2012

Because they do not list which vehicle is being inspected or insured, by any identifiable description,  in the vendor reports, it is not easy to determine when the Mayor’s car was inspected or insured and who paid for this service, the Mayor Office, the Police Department or the DPW.

It would appear that the DPW recognizes that the car in question is the Mayor’s car and not a loaned police car. I ask that the car driven by the Mayor be detailed per the Executive Order or returned to the Police Department for placement back into the rotation.
Ed. Note: Glad I didn’t have to determine if this car was donated to the City Police for a specific purpose. Would be a shame if the donation were being misused —by the Mayor. Wouldn’t that have been poetic justice…

Here is one that begs for repair in an age of openness.

This is from the Municipal code.

Section 6-1. Authorization

Pursuant to the authority contained in Sections 108A and 108C of Chapter 41 of the General Laws, there shall be established plans which may be amended from time to time by vote of the City Council at a regular or special Council meeting:
(a) classifying positions in the service of the municipality other than those filled by popular election, those under the jurisdiction of the School Committee, the Mayor, and those for which incumbents render contractual services which are nor provided during regularly established working hours, and which do not appear in Schedule A of Section 7 following, into groups and classes doing substantially similar work or having substantially equal responsibilities;
(b) authorizing a compensation plan for positions in the classification plan;
(c) providing for the administration of said classification and compensation plans; and
(d) establishing certain working conditions and fringe benefits for employees occupying positions in the classification plan.

Section 6-4. Classification Plan

(a) All positions in the service of the municipality, except those excluded by Section 1, are hereby classified by titles appearing in Schedules A through K of Section 7 which is made a part hereof. These classes of positions shall constitute the Classification Plan for paid municipal services.

(b) The title of each class, as established by the Classification Plan, shall be the official title of every position allocated to the class and the official title of each incumbent of a position so allocated and shall be used to the exclusion of all other on payrolls, budget estimates and other official records and reports pertaining to the position.

(c) The title of a position which is held by an employee with a dual or a multiple Civil Service rating shall be that recommended by the employee’s department head, or by the administrative authority having jurisdiction over the organization unit to which the employee is assigned with the approval of the Mayor.

(d) Whenever a new position is established or the duties of an existing position are so changed that in effect a new position is created, upon presentation of substantiating data satisfactory to the Mayor, the Mayor shall allocate such new or changed position to its appropriate class.

(e) No position may be reclassified until the Mayor shall have determined such reclassification to be consistent with the Classification Plan. The Mayor may, however, when he considers such action to be necessary for the proper functioning of services, authorize a new classification and assign same to an existing compensation grade or determine the rate to be paid to an incumbent employee.

Section 6-5. Compensation Plan

(a) The Compensation Plan shall consist of Schedules A through K of Section 7 which provide minimum and maximum salaries or wages for certain of the classes in the classification. The salary range of a class shall be the salary range of all positions allocated to the class. If no range is provided, the single rate appearing in Schedules A through K shall be the basis of compensation paid to an employee occupying a position under the appropriate class title.

(b) Each employee shall continue to be paid on the same basis as in effect at the time of adoption of this ordinance unless otherwise provided in the Compensation Plan.

(c) No administrative authority shall fix the salary of any employee in a position in the Classification Plan except in accordance with the Compensation Plan.

(d) No person shall be paid as an employee in any position subject to the provisions in the Classification Plan under any title other than one appearing in Schedules A through K of Section 7 under the title specified by the Director of Civil Service of the Commonwealth based on the duties of the position as determined by the job description prepared by the Mayor.

(e) An employee in continuous employment in a class appearing on Schedules A through K of Section 7 shall receive the increment between his/her present rate and the next higher step rate as follows:

(1) After completion of six months at the minimum or entrance rate.

(2) Thereafter, one year from the date of his/her previous increase.

(3) The increase in rate which this increment represents must be recommended by the employee’s department department head and approved by the Mayor.

(4) The increase shall be based on performance of the employee during the preceding six month or twelve month period and not solely on length of service.

(f) An employee receiving a promotion to a vacant position or to a new position as defined in Section 4(d) shall, upon assignment resulting from such promotion, receive the rate in the compensation grade of the vacant or new position next above his/her existing rate. If the resulting adjustment is less than Five Hundred Dollars ($500.00) on an annual basis for apposition class assigned to Schedules A through K, the adjustment shall be the second rate above the existing rate but within the compensation grade of the vacant or new position.

(g) The employee receiving a promotion and adjustment in rate pursuant to the provisions of the preceding sub-section may receive the next increment of his/her compensation grade effective following completion of twelve months at the rate resulting from the promotion.

(h) The employee who is transferred to a similarly rated or to a lower rated position for the convenience of the municipality shall enter the new position at his/her rate in the position from which he is transferred.

(i) Each administrative authority shall include in its estimates, required by the provisions of Section 31A of Chapter 44 of the General Laws, a pay adjustment section setting forth in detail the amounts which will be required for anticipated pay adjustments during the ensuing year and shall furnish a copy thereof to the Mayor.

(j) No department head, being first initially employed by the City of Methuen, shall be entitled to a retroactive cost-of-living adjustment for the first year of service in the City of Methuen.

(Ord. #641, Eff. May 6th, 1998)

Section 6-7. Reserved

Did you notice anything missing?
I would premise that this is an easy fix. My guess would be that it will not get fixed.

As you are aware, I have questioned the Council about the Consolidation Committee in the past.

The issue of the IT Department in the recent news and debated at Council has prompted me to
write and request that a Consolidation Committee, either as a standing Committee of the Council
or as an Ad Hoc Committee, as in the past they were, be created by Ordinance or Resolution, to
investigate and recommend solutions for the IT Department needs in the City of Methuen.

I recommend that members, as occurred in the past, be brought in from the Council and the School Committee to look into this.

Thank you for your consideration of this recommendation

I have never heard a word.
Not even an acknowledgement that the email was received.
I even wrote a Letter to the Editor, published in the Lawrence Eagle Tribune,along the same vein.

Municipal IT services for the long term.

As with most things in life, one can take a reactive, conservative or proactive stance on Municipal issues. I offer these thoughts to move the dialog forward.
The Conservative stance consists of leaving things to basically continue as before applying minor tweaks here and there and continuing to fund at substantially the same,however inflationary adjusted rate.

The reactive stance is to hire someone to come in and “assess” the current status. Using this pre-biased tool, one can then arbitrarily make drastic changes that have no basic plan in place but appear, in the short term to offer cost savings. The end result of knee-jerk reactions are often higher long term cost and the creation of a cycle of assess-gut reactions which do not benefit the long term functionality of a municipality.

A proactive approach is often more difficult to achieve but has substantial real long term benefits.
This could start by looking at the Municipality as a cohesive unit. In today’s muni-structure it is often that the CEO views his organization as two separate entities, the Town/City and the School. Step back and look at it from a taxpayer perspective, One does not pay separate tax bills for these entities. It is one tax bill and then the CEO splits the funds as required to support both entities. To consolidate should be the first goal.

One approach would be to create two teams. One team is tasked with creating a consolidated resource. The second team is tasked with defining the requirements of or create a business model for the IT department, as a service provider for the muni’s future.

My recommendation, with endless caveats, would be to define an IT model with and for the State. This would view the 351 cities and towns and the 391 school districts as customers. The State would become a hosting service. They would set up server farms and upload standard open source software that could be downloaded and customized by each of it’s customers as required. Each customer would pay a hosting fee to cover the cost of the servers. This plan is very similar to the business model used by hosting service companies, Go Daddy being among the most well known.

Let’s create the model and then move into the future confident that we have considered the consolidation and economy of scale of regionalizing. This may be the most economic process but is time consuming and does not make political hay in the short term. It should provide long term stability and cost savings to an always struggling populace.

It is not just the City Council.
All email addresses have been removed from the City website. All email traffic is directed to the Mayor’s office. [Guess the Open door policy is so the email has somewhere to go after piling up.]
The Mayor does not respond to email addressed to his official email address.
I have heard from no one who has written to Mayor Zanni and received a reply.

I accidentally, (yeah right), posted about email on Facebook.
A newly minted Councilor called my house and said, ” I spoke with the Mayor and he will put email addresses for Councilors back on the website that day.”
Never happened.
After a week, or so, I called the Councilor and asked if I had misunderstood.
No was the reply.
He had received an update from the Mayor that due to Hackers and SPAM, email was being “managed”.
I asked how many hack attacks and how much Spam? Dead silence.
I have been hacked once in 6 years.
I have spam filters and that has greatly reduced the incidence of spam.
Even so, I still do most of my business over the internet.

I don’t see a sense of Open government principles being promulgated in the opening months of this administration.
Just saying…

I was surrounded by my family and we all listened.
I noted some egregious mis-truths perpetrated by one candidate. Political expediency seems to breed this.

I was a member of two Water and Sewer Task forces.
These were groups organized by the Methuen City Council to review the water and sewer rate and rate setting process.
Our viewpoint was not met with overwhelming support.
That’s water under the bridge (chuckle).

I, again, heard that the Water Treatment plant capacity was increased to meet the needs of the citizens of Methuen. This statement is the crux of disagreement between the Task Force and the Administration.

The Methuen water works can now and has for the past 15 years at least been capable of producing from the Merrimack River 10 million gallons of water per day.

After about $19-$20 million worth of work, it still can only produce the same amount of water.

The cost was to upgrade the plant not increase it’s capacity.

The Plant should now have a more streamlined maintenance program and the cost of producing water should be decreasing as overhead costs for maintenance activities decline.

Even after all that work and cost and the numerous bickering about rates, costs are increasing.
Water rates are still being discussed as inadequate to generate the revenue required.

Even after all this time, this article is still true.

Take a few minutes and click through.
Read, think about and leave feedback on your thoughts.

The Institute for Local Government [ILG] states, “ILG is the research and education affiliate of the California State Association of Counties and the League of California Cities.” Their motto is “Promoting Good Government at the Local Level.”

I clicked to read:  “What Do You Think Promotes Public Service Ethics?

ILG, in its efforts to promote good government at the local level with practical, easy-to-use and impartial resources, is currently reviewing the future and focus of its Public Confidence program. Here you will find a summary of the resources ILG provides to help local officials sift through the ethical and legal issues of public service ethics. We would also like to hear from you on what promotes public service ethics.”

I , also, linked to City Ethics.org [see, Model Ethics Code] whose goal is “making local government more ethical”. A banner on the site proclaims “This website is an international project designed to exchange best practices in government ethics programs.”

Take a peek when you have a moment.

Don’t forget any of our other links. They are all there to help enlighten.

Pro and con about the links as well as our content is always appreciated.
I actually read all the comments and even the spam.
Good ideas are everywhere.

———————————————————–
8th Grade Final Exam: Salina, KS – 1895

Grammar (Time, one hour)
1. Give nine rules for the use of capital letters.
2. Name the parts of speech and define those that have no modifications.
3. Define verse, stanza and paragraph
4. What are the principal parts of a verb? Give principal parts of ‘lie, ?play,’ and ‘run.’
5. Define case; illustrate each case.
6. What is punctuation? Give rules for principal marks of punctuation.
7 – 10. Write a composition of about 150 words and show therein that you understand the practical use of the rules of grammar.

Arithmetic (Time,1 hour 15 minutes)
1. Name and define the Fundamental Rules of Arithmetic.
2. A wagon box is 2 ft. Deep, 10 feet long, and 3 ft. Wide. How many bushels of wheat will it hold?
3. If a load of wheat weighs 3,942 lbs., what is it worth at 50cts/bushel, deducting 1,050 lbs. For tare?
4. District No 33 has a valuation of $35,000.. What is the necessary levy to carry on a school seven months at $50 per month, and have $104 for incidentals?
5. Find the cost of 6,720 lbs. Coal at $6.00 per ton.
6. Find the interest of $512.60 for 8 months and 18 days at 7 percent.
7. What is the cost of 40 boards 12 inches wide and 16 ft.. Long at $20 per metre?
8. Find bank discount on $300 for 90 days (no grace) at 10 percent.
9. What is the cost of a square farm at $15 per acre, the distance of which is 640 rods?
10. Write a Bank Check, a Promissory Note, and a Receipt

U.S. History (Time, 45 minutes)
1. Give the epochs into which U.S. History is divided
2. Give an account of the discovery of America by Columbus
3. Relate the causes and results of the Revolutionary War.
4. Show the territorial growth of the United States
5. Tell what you can of the history of Kansas
6. Describe three of the most prominent battles of the Rebellion.
7. Who were the following: Morse, Whitney, Fulton, Bell, Lincoln, Penn, and Howe?
8. Name events connected with the following dates: 1607, 1620, 1800, 1849, 1865.

Orthography (Time, one hour) [Do we even know what this is??--try clicking the link.]
1. What is meant by the following: alphabet, phonetic, orthography, etymology, syllabication
2. What are elementary sounds? How classified?
3. What are the following, and give examples of each: trigraph, sub vocals, diphthong, cognate letters, lingual?s
4. Give four substitutes for caret ‘u.’ (HUH?)
5. Give two rules for spelling words with final ‘e.’ Name two exceptions under each rule.
6. Give two uses of silent letters in spelling. Illustrate each.
7. Define the following prefixes and use in connection with a word: bi, dis-mis, pre, semi, post, non, inter, mono, sup.
8. Mark diacritically and divide into syllables the following, and name the sign that indicates the sound: card, ball, mercy,
sir, odd, cell, rise, blood, fare, last.
9. Use the following correctly in sentences: cite, site, sight, fane, fain, feign, vane, vain, vein, raze, raise, rays.
10. Write 10 words frequently mispronounced and indicate pronunciation by use of diacritical marks
and by syllabication.

Geography (Time, one hour)
1 What is climate? Upon what does climate depend?
2. How do you account for the extremes of climate in Kansas ?
3. Of what use are rivers? Of what use is the ocean?
4. Describe the mountains of North America
5. Name and describe the following: Monrovia, Odessa, Denver, Manitoba, Hecla, Yukon, St. Helena,Juan Fernandez, Aspinwall and Orinoco
6. Name and locate the principal trade centers of the U.S. Name all the republics of Europe and give the capital of each..
8. Why is the Atlantic Coast colder than the Pacific in the same latitude?
9. Describe the process by which the water of the ocean returns to the sources of rivers.
10. Describe the movements of the earth. Give the inclination of the earth.

Notice that the exam took FIVE HOURS to complete.
Gives the saying ‘he only had an 8th grade education’ a whole new meaning, doesn’t it?!
No wonder they dropped out after 8th grade. They already knew more than they needed to know!
No, I don’t have the answers And I don’t think I ever did!
Have fun with this… I pass it on so we’re not the only ones who feel stupid!!!

Be sure, when you are complete with reading the questions and feel stumped, to read the Snopes Report and/or the report on Truth or Fiction website. Might ease the pain.
If you decided not to read the Snopes report, you might want to read this. A certification examination for prospective teachers, prepared by the Examiners of Teachers for the Public Schools in Zanesville, Ohio, in the late 1870s. Just as much fun and more “stuff” I have probably forgotten, if I ever knew it.

Well, the answer will surprise you.
Let’s look at the School Committee policies.
There is a policy on Assignment to schools.
This policy states:”Each school within the school system is defined by attendance boundaries set by the Committee. It is generally expected that youngsters will attend the school within the attendance district of his/her residence. However, the Committee recognizes that there are situations in which it is beneficial to both the youngster and the school system to allow a placement outside of the attendance district. The Superintendent is authorized to grant or deny written requests for individuals to attend a school outside designated attendance areas according to the following guidelines:”

Some of those guidelines are:
“2. When a youngster moves to a new residence and that new residence is in a different attendance district, a request to remain at the previously assigned school will be honored subject to the availability of space in the school.

4. In all cases in which a placement outside of the attendance district of residence is granted, parents will assume the responsibility for transportation to and from school.”

So it appears that the criteria to look at is the availability of space in the school..
The policy even states each schools space.
“A school is deemed to have space available if the total enrollment of the school is at or below its design capacity and the classroom to which the youngster is assigned will not exceed twenty-five students.”

Comprehensive Grammar School ——————–Design Capacity 1200 students
Marsh Grammar School ———————————-Design Capacity 1370 students
Tenney Grammar School ——————————–Design Capacity 1370 students
Timony Grammar School ——————————-Design Capacity 1370 students

I do not know the age of this officials child or what grade the child is in. It is actually irrelevant to the discussion.
Let’s look at school enrollment for the period in question. Keep in mind that children in the Central district will attend ,usually, the Timony School.

From the Department of Education website for Massachusetts we find;

Year  Marsh Timony Tenney
2007 1397 1456 1446
2008 1370 1427 1427
2009 1366 1454 1431
2010 1342 1437 1375
2011 1328 1379 1376

So the truth is that the Tenney and Timony schools have been over capacity for the period in question and per the published policy it was well within the discretion of the Superintendent to grant the waiver and even made sense to exacerbate overcrowding.

The newly elected official was, probably, just trying to maintain continuity in the child’s life and probably didn’t realize the additional benefit to the school system of his request.

The good news is that the data shows the School District has been making strides to even out the student count in our schools.

Hope this answers any questions about this issue.

One complaint about this photo op is that it takes place at a time when the beneficiaries of the largesse are unable to attend. Or…. Looking at the photo, maybe THEY were.

A new park was created in Downtown Methuen.

It has a long history of being funded, then the funding was “moved” to more pressing issues, then being funded again only to repeat the money moves. I have lost track of the number of times and the total amount of money sent to Methuen to clean up this site and do “something” proactive with it.

The site borders the Spicket River downtown and could be a really nice place to stop and view the River. Especially if one were tracing the Millionaire Walk.
However, the river bank was never cleaned up. It is bolstered by numerous oil tanks, ostensibly filled with concrete. A very lovely sight.

One politician who voted numerous times to accept the millions that flowed into the city, apparently was at the site for the first time and noted the old dock still precariously perched on the island in the river. The dock has been there for perhaps 80 plus years. The pol, who is between 66 and 68 had never noticed it.

I am told there were also comments about how much money was sent and how much was used for this enhancement. These questions from someone who should have those numbers on the tips of his fingers.

The article states that the money received was from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, abbreviated ARRA (Pub.L. 111-5), often referred to as the “Stimulus bill”.
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 was an act making supplemental appropriations for job preservation and creation, infrastructure investment, energy efficiency and science, assistance to the unemployed, and State and local fiscal stabilization, for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2009, and for other purposes.

I guess the key is the last phrase “for other purposes.”

The primary objective for ARRA was to save and create jobs almost immediately.
Secondary objectives were to provide temporary relief programs for those most impacted by the recession and invest in infrastructure, education, health, and ‘green’ energy. The term, infrastructure, typically refers to the technical structures that support a society, such as roads, water supply, sewers, electrical grids, telecommunications, and so forth, and can be defined as “the physical components of interrelated systems providing commodities and services essential to enable, sustain, or enhance societal living conditions.”

The Act also included many items not directly related to economic recovery such as long-term spending projects and other items specifically included by Congress (?pork?: ed note.) .

So, as you well could have guessed, how much did we spend and what “stimulus” was created?
How many jobs were saved or created with this money?

Okay, so it was an infrastructure project.
How does an unmarked park in the center of a nonfunctional city downtown support,enable, sustain, or enhance societal living conditions.

What could the “other purposes” be?

I surely would have liked to see the City publish the costs to “build” this park.
The steps taken to “clean” the contaminated site.
Who thought it would be a good idea to move large rocks from somewhere and call them seats.
[Have you ever sat on a rock? Very cool...especially on your buttocks.]
Not very comfortable. Great place for children to play.

As always, I welcome your comments.

During the past few months an election cycle has taken place in the City of Methuen.

The Firefighters Union was determined to make sure their candidate wins. So they began attacking his opponent.

They started with the premise that “Big Lie” theory works.
They told a lie. Then they embellished it and began to believe it.

The lie was that Al Dinuccio had stated he would privatize the Methuen Fire Department Ambulance Service.
I searched and never found a reference in any speech that this statement was ever made.
[ed: if you find a link that shows this statement, I will publish it and retract this statement.]

UPDATE: 12/28/2011: This site, Double Talking Al, is no longer active on-line. The link does not work. Instead they have posted the videos on You Tube.
Here is the website the Firefighters Union created. Double Talking Al.

They could not even admit to owning it so they purchased private registration.
(This listing is a Network Solutions Private Registration when viewed on Whois site)
They also run the unofficial site: Methuen Fire department.com and the Methuen Fire.com

Here is the Methuen Fire Department official site.

They forgot to add a link to one of their articles, so I add it here. It is from a debate for the Massachusetts Congressional race, discussing State wide issues, not Methuen centric.

I read the site numerous times. I see that they want me to believe that they make $1.2 Million per year. My question becomes, If they make $1.2 million, why the $800,000 in overtime? Are you trying to tell us that your actual costs are $2 million in overtime? That smacks of mismanagement, methinks.

They also forgot to mention that Private Ambulance services are REQUIRED to post financial statements each year and that Municipal Ambulance Services are exempt from that requirement because the tax payer foots the bill and it is part of the budget process.

No one, that I know of, has made any derogatory remark about the level of service or training of the members of the Methuen Fire Service.

This was written by a 21 yr old female who gets it. It’s her future she’s worried about and this is how she feels about the social welfare big government state that she’s being forced to live in! These solutions are just common sense in her opinion.

This was in the Waco Tribune Herald, Waco , TX.
It was published November 18, 2010 in Letters to the Editor, “Fixing Social Security; Put me in charge of welfare, Medicare and housing grants” If you subscribe there was a followup letter, January 09, 2011 in Letters to the Editor, “Put us all in charge, our moral landscape, No COLA but free rides offered?” (comment: Put us all in charge … The idea that the proposals outlined in my Nov. 18 letter [“Put me in charge”] were “punitive” — to quote the Jan. 1 Tribune editorial “Our choices for top story of 2010” — proves that the Tribune is still playing an Austin tune …)

Put me in charge . . .

Put me in charge of food stamps. I’d get rid of Lone Star cards; no cash for Ding Dongs or Ho Ho’s, just money for 50-pound bags of rice and beans, blocks of cheese and all the powdered milk you can haul away. If you want steak and frozen pizza, then get a job.

Put me in charge of Medicaid. The first thing I’d do is to get women Norplant birth control implants or tubal ligations. Then, we’ll test recipients for drugs, alcohol, and nicotine and document all tattoos and piercings. If you want to reproduce or use drugs, alcohol, smoke or get tats and piercings, then get a job.

Put me in charge of government housing. Ever live in a military barracks?

You will maintain our property in a clean and good state of repair. Your “home” will be subject to inspections anytime and possessions will be inventoried. If you want a plasma TV or Xbox 360, then get a job and your own place.

In addition, you will either present a check stub from a job each week or you will report to a “government” job. It may be cleaning the roadways of trash, painting and repairing public housing, whatever we find for you. We will sell your 22 inch rims and low profile tires and your blasting stereo and speakers and put that money toward the “common good..”

Before you write that I’ve violated someone’s rights, realize that all of the above is voluntary.
If you want our money, accept our rules..
Before you say that this would be “demeaning” and ruin their “self esteem,” consider that it wasn’t that long ago that taking someone else’s money for doing absolutely nothing was demeaning and lowered self esteem.

If we are expected to pay for other people’s mistakes we should at least attempt to make them learn from their bad choices. The current system rewards them for continuing to make bad choices.

AND While you are on Gov’t subsistence, you no longer can VOTE!

Yes that is correct.

For you to vote would be a conflict of interest.
You will voluntarily remove yourself from voting while you are receiving a Gov’t welfare check.
If you want to vote, then get a job.

Now, if you have the guts – PASS IT ON… Stand up my friends, Aloha