Adventures in Town Government
We just received a call from Tiverton Schools Superintendent William Rearick (or, more likely, a recording) encouraging us, as parents in the town, to attend tomorrow night’s financial town meeting in order to vote for the 11% increase in taxes so that the district won’t have to tighten its belt anymore. A related Projo article…
Life kept me away from Tiverton’s Financial Town Meeting, Wednesday night, although to be honest, I suspected that I would have been one of the few not falling into line in response to town official arguments such as the following: … since Mr. Cotta and other officials said that legally the school budget cannot be…
This is a recurring issue with school committees and town/city councils across the state; Matt Bower of the Warwick Beacon reports that the Warwick City Council has formally expressed its support for a General Assembly bill that would prevent specific health-insurers from being named in teacher contracts…Members of the Warwick Teachers Union are not pleased…
… can only be obtained and maintained if one continues to occupy the mayor’s office. Addendum: link to the Providence Journal story. [Woonsocket Mayor Susan] Menard, who won her seventh mayoral term last fall, announced that she would leave office on June 15, a year and half before her current term expires. But as the…
So this Wednesday, at the annual Tiverton Financial Town Meeting (potentially among the last), voters will be asked to approve an 11% property tax increase: Town electors who attend next Wednesday night’s Financial Town Meeting will be asked to vote on a total recommended budget of $41.7 million. To raise that amount, a tax levy…
From today’s Providence Journal: The School Committee voted late Tuesday night to sue the city for $4.9 million in additional education aid, setting the stage for a costly, bruising legal battle. The committee became the second in the state this year, after the West Warwick board, to authorize a lawsuit seeking more cash from a…
I’ve most likely been overstating the number of Tiverton teachers who stand to lose their jobs if the union remains implacable. Thirty-four notices of potential layoffs went out to meet a deadline; one position was eliminated in the school budget as passed; so I’ve been saying that intransigence might result in the actual layoffs of…
Throughout my adult years, I’d never so much as considered sending my children to private school (parochial or otherwise) until very recently. Even my particular tincture of religious faith leads me strongly to feel that spending one’s formative years among a cross-section of the local society — an opportunity that my own experience led me…
A typo in Tom Killin Dalglish’s Sakonnet Times piece on the Tiverton police department sexual harassment suits is just too ripe for speculation of the subconscious not to note it: Defendants named in the lawsuits besides the Town of Tiverton are James Amarantes (the former town treasurer), Louis Durfee (president of the Town Council), Mr.…
Two weeks ago, an ethics complaint was filed against Mayor Susan Menard for her role in the city’s no-bid lease of four motorcycles from her son-in-law’s dealership. She announced soon thereafter that she would be retiring in June. Fast forward to Monday night’s City Council meeting at which Mayor Menard was a surprise show. This…
