Mansfield politics

[JohnnyD]

Originally Posted by buckman

There is enough Mansfield guys here for our on thread.
What's your take on the schools threat to eliminate sports?

Technically, not a threat. On the other hand, it was conveniently timed with the Selectmen/School Board/Finance Committee meeting last night.

The school can't sacrifice significantly more teachers and they saw that last year, when they did fire a lot of teachers, people in the town weren't outraged because the direct effects on their kids wasn't obvious. Fortunately, stimulus money came in from the state to hire some teachers back.

On the other hand, this will immediately and directly affect the residents kids. It also affects many parent's source for "after school child care". So this is the school's way of saying "hey, we've done all we can with the budget we've been provided. They're your kids, it's your money, you decide."

In my opinion, there's a huge budget gap that needs to be closed. The town doesn't want to fire many more teachers. After school sports and arts programs are elective. Schools are expected to but aren't required to have them. If the residents want a service, they're going to have to pay for it. If they don't want to pay for it (which I feel is an acceptable opinion to have), then they won't get the service.

[striperman36]

Several other towns have fee based sports. I think they will change to that policy.

It is not a large amount in the entire budget, so I also believe it is the scare tactic yet again.
bringing the class size up to 32 thats huge.

And turn those damn lights off!!!

[JohnnyD]

Originally Posted by striperman36

And turn those damn lights off!!!

Please tell me you're talking about the stadium lights for the practice field??

Sometimes I'd be driving home at 11pm and see the stadium lights on. Those drove me absolutely insane

[striperman36]

Originally Posted by JohnnyD

Please tell me you're talking about the stadium lights for the practice field??

Sometimes I'd be driving home at 11pm and see the stadium lights on. Those drove me absolutely insane

Yeah dem lights.

And, Buckman has it right.

[striperman36]

and thats why we're at SMCS and then Xvarian

[Sweetwater]

Mansfield...call the bluff and refuse any tax increases. If you let tax increases go through, you'll never get it back. But...the economy will improve eventually. Tax increases are never short term solutions.

[JohnnyD]

Originally Posted by Sweetwater

Mansfield...call the bluff and refuse any tax increases. If you let tax increases go through, you'll never get it back. But...the economy will improve eventually. Tax increases are never short term solutions.

The tax increase would legally only be for this year. Prop 2 1/2 limits helps protect the residents in that aspect.

The selectmen need to accept the request from the schools for an override. Then the selectmen would have to vote to present that information to the town for the town to vote on at a special meeting with an open hearing.

At a ton of these meetings, Mansfield Crossing was discussed and voted on. One of the sales to the town was the estimated $1 million in added revenue to the town. What they left out was the requirement to add a handful of police, fire and other town personnel/services - all for a single shopping center. From what I hear, that the added personnel ate up over 3/4s of the money and that's just what was reported.

I've had a theory about this town for the last year. The town government had so much money coming in from Great Woods, an industrial park that was packed full and the revenue that was gained through permitting and taxes from all the new home construction that they didn't have to be wise with their money. The town got two new ambulances, couple new fire engines, expanded high school, redesigned bus pickup/drop-off for grades 6-12 and 4 or 5 repavings of Pratt St between Hope and Franklin St.

There was so much money coming in that they could spend, spend spend and with that, huge areas of waste developed along with massive areas of bloat. Now, that there's significantly less money coming it and a huge bubble of students entering the middle and high schools, they don't know where to gather the funds.

It's absolutely ridiculous that with so many different revenue streams that the town is consistently facing so much hardship. Add in that piece of crap Town Manager that they finally fired and the current state of the town is the result.


I agree completely agree with Buckman, No Override and vote them out.