I have to say that I have been quite happy with the leadership of the Belknap County Convention this year in setting a “protect the taxpayer outlook” in examining and correcting the budget that the Belknap County Commissioners set at the beginning of the budgetary cycle. Yes, I said correcting! Even though they are elected officials, they showed a Statist’s view of other peoples’ money – spend it! Even as they couched it in terms of “Oh, needs have risen so much but we have carefully cut to bone – and we are giving the taxpayers of Belknap Conty an almost 9% tax hike in their property taxes“. In other words “screw you – we are taking your money for our purposes”.
That is, until what I consider the conservative wing of the Convention stepped in to protect taxpayers – as they are promised to do. The running rise now is 0.3%. My take is why is it always the taxpayers that are on tap to take the haircut – let the County Commissioners, County Admin Debbie Shackett (whose antics apparently haven’t improved all that much since being Evans Juris’s sidekick here in Gilford – remember that wonderful Code of Ethics you and Evans spent “hours” working on – only for me to discover you both had plaigerized it from Sunnyvale, CA?) and the rest sit in the barber’s chair….but I digress. Here is the guest post from an interested reader from the Budget meeting for the County this past Monday:
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The meeting on Monday, February 25th was nothing but a disgrace. The County Commissioners, who believe they are all high and mighty treated the delegation and Representative Worsman with disdain and disrespect. They are the first to yell point of order, and make faces to the public. Their conduct is unbecoming elected officials. As I sat and listened to the antics of whom I now call the Three Stooges, I wonder how three grown men, can treat a lady, who always treats them with respect with such disdain. When Chair Worsman, told Rep Holmes he could not abstain from the vote, the stooges along with their cohort County Administrator Shackett, asked what parliamentary procedure she was using, and said it it Chair Worsman’s rules. I almost became unglued, because during the last budget session of 2012 when then Chair Millham, told members of the delegation they could not abstain from voting, not once but twice (review the videos) they never said a word. This just shows that they have no intention of being civil, no matter what the delegation does.
And as for Representative Gulich she is out of order at almost every turn. I wonder why she is so angry? She is always touting transparency, but yet had she sat thru the previous two years of budget meetings, she might realize that the public is more aware this year, than the prior two years about what is in the budget. I don’t remember seeing her there, and for the other reps who are new, last night was truly telling, on where the Three Stooges stand. It is their way or the highway.
I am so sick and tired of hearing of the lies spouted in the papers. When the Commissioners told the delegation wanted to level fund taxes, they spouted, they will cut the outside agencies. The Commissioners were also told to level fund wages, but all of a sudden, they need to speak to the delegation, another ploy from the Three Stooges. Oh how transparent they are. If I remember correctly in 2011, when the delegation wanted address certain line items, the union contract was already in force, and the delegation respected that. At that time, if memory serves correctly, Rep Worsman told the Commissioners and the rest of the delegation, she did not believe any delegation should bind another by a contract, meaning that contracts should be for 2 years at a time, so each delegation, can make their own decision. How many reps have ever said that??? So last year when the contract was up, the delegation only had one year left, so low and behold the Commissioners only did a one year contract. Now here we are today, and the Commissioners are still ignoring the majority of the delegation.
