GilfordGrok

that both of them chose to try to establish their bona fides as true blue conservatives.

Balderdash!

Margo tries this stunt here at about 4:28 into the video here.  Paraphrased (some), she says:

What is the difference between Gus and myself?  While we are both fiscal conservatives....I've had people from Doug Lambert to Skip Murphy to Dick Hickock actually, basically, say that to me in the past two years that I have been on the budget committee.

I fail to remember EVAH calling her a fiscal conservative.  Perhaps I may have; she's more conservative than Derek Tomlinson, but that's a rather low bar to step over.  I also point out that her claim to fiscal conservatism is not too well served by this post I did here "Not mine to give"; obviously she does believe that it is her job to recommend that it is her's to give where I wrote (and quoted Margo):

Town budget season is wrapping up all over NH; my hamlet is no exception. Last part of our job was to Recommend / NOT Recommend four Petition Warrant articles to fund charities with taxpayer monies (if that sounds like gobbledy-gook, see after the jump). Of COURSE, there are those that have no compunction about donating their fellow citizens tax money for charitable purposes - regardless of whether those citizens would normally support that charity.  One of my fellow Budgeteers tried to equate donating to these social services organizations with funding the Town's Fire Dept; after all, we pay for the latter's service and thus, fails to see any difference:

"Back in the day, our families used to provide this service but that doesn't exist anymore for most of us. So many of us will rely on these services at some point in our lifetime.  So I don't think it is like giving to  other charitable organizations which are kind of nice but you don't need them in your life."

The dirty secret why it doesn't exist is because we let it - it has become far easier let to of that responsibility and outsource the care of our families to society at large than do it ourselves. Before I get into the argument of why this is a straw-man argument (as well as being irrelevant)...

....What she fails to mention is significant:

First: The Fire Dept IS a town dept - we appropriate monies, and we control their expenditures.  The employees of the dept are under Town control - the Town Administrator and the Selectboard.  Not running right?  Correction applied - and there is accountability.

Two: These charitable groups / social services / non-governmental organizations do not report to the Town Administration OR to the voters - we have NO idea where the money can really go OR apply corrections if badly spent.  In fact, there is NO accountability and therefore, not the "same" as the Fire Dept.

Third: she implicitly argues for Bigger Government via "scope creep" (e.g., "our families used to provide this service") - it is easier to just let Govt do just one more thing - it's a great idea!...

...For me, it is the height of hubris that a politician should force fellow taxpayers to pay for charities that they might not otherwise support.  Charity by Government is simply taxes collected by force and given to others - a redistribution of wealth by politicians.

No, I would, overall, consider Margo, while being a very nice lady, a moderate.  A LOT of people are now claiming to be fiscally conservative this year solely in that the political winds have changed (re: TEA Party movement).

I will also add this - Given the vitriol that Alice Boucher and Evans Juris have shown to both Gus and Connie, their endorsement of you in the papers today does not help. I will never forget the "queen bee being ignored" look and speech from Ms. Boucher as Gus and Connie overrode her wishes in do the right thing and fire Juris.  Talk about madder than hell that her high perch as Chair made no difference in the Right Two doing the Right thing.

I still chuckle over the imagery.

No, Margo, you are not the Biggest Conservative in the race.  While Gus is not as conservative as I, he is more conservative as you.

*****

Dale tries that same "cover me as a fiscal conservative" during his part of the video.  Real conservatives don't have to quibble about definitions of who is and who isn't a conservative; they just are. 

Dale is not and is trying, as many Liberal Progressives have done before, to "turn" or shade the language.  

He then tried it in his Letter to the Editor today in the Citizen:

I first want to thank the voters of Gilford for the privilege of serving on the town's Budget Committee over the past three years. This committee has considerable powers over the town and school budgets, and it is critical that its members be thorough, balanced, and open to the needs and opinions of all Gilford residents.

I am asking for your vote for a second term on the Budget Committee because I believe I help provide this thorough, balanced approach.

From the Liberal side!

I have participated fully and regularly in all committee functions, and have worked with others to conduct thorough and demanding reviews of all departmental budgets. I led the effort to provide more detailed information on the ballot by requiring that vote totals are shown alongside recommendations from the Budget Committee and the Selectmen. I will continue to push for fair and balanced budget reviews.

While the Budget Committee has the right and the responsiblity to conduct a tough final review and to make any budget revisions they deem necessary, they also have a responsibility to demonstrate a complete understanding of the ramifications of their changes, and to be as specific as possible about why the changes were made.

But he doesn't talk to that.

Finally, I have been and will remain a strong supporter of school athletics and the small group of non-governmental agencies that appear on the ballot each year.

A true fiscal conservative believes that charity is an individual act.  It is not, as Dale believes, a communitarianism that all should give to certain charities regardless of individual freedom of choice.

My support of these departments or line items does not mean that their budgetary requests are treated any differently.

His actions belie his words - the Library has ALWAYS been that which he has fought for the most.

What it means is that I approach their budget requests with an open mind, and with an understanding that we represent the entire community of Gilford residents - many of whom expect and in some cases rely heavily on the services that these departments and institutions provide.

I have identified myself as a conservative, and have voted accordingly, all of my life. My brand of conservatism is one that respects and recognizes the value of differing opinions.

Dale, you can identify yourself as a conservative all day long.  The actual truth?  You can't get theah from where you are!  Redefining conservatism to once again fit your campaign is a schlock move.

Remember folks, this is the guy who basically was against the BudComm before he wanted to be on it.  To wit:

• that he and his wife signed the Petition Warrant a few years ago to GET RID of the Budget Committee
• He campaigned the first time on a platform that he would recuse himself from his wife's department (she is the Chief Librarian) budget.  Then it devolved to just not voting on anything dealing with his wife's salary.
• Upon being elected, he grandly announced at the first meeting that he would vote on anything he wanted to and that there was nothing we could do to stop him.  Legally, he was right.  Morally, he broke his campaign promises to all of his supporters.

Fiscal Conservative - what a crock!  While he *might* have once or twice voted for something that might have reduced spending, I cannot, for the life of me, remember (and given that it is Dale, I should have!). 

Frankly, he has been in opposition the entire time on the BudComm to the true fiscal conservatives on the BudComm since arriving - and those would include myself, Doug Lambert, Sue Green, Terry Stewart for starters.

And Gus, when he was the rep from the Selectboard.

Posted by Skip at 12:11 PM | Permalink

Update:  we may be partisan, but we try to be accurate as well.  I received this from Scott Dunn, the Town Administrator and promised to put it up at my earliest convenience:

Hi Skip,

I just wanted to set the record straight after reading the Grok today.

In the final version of the M.O.U. pertaining to plowing, the “Emergency Lane” declaration was specifically deleted at the request of Chairman Benavides.  This was also announced at the public hearing.

Thought you might like to know……

Scott

Consider it corrected and done.

=============================================================

GilfordGrok is happy to announce its recommendations / endorsements.  Please note that we have only mentioned those positions that are being contested by more than one person:

Some quick takes:

• While I have had a few issues with some of Gus's votes (e.g., the most recent one over plowing the Gilford Community Church parking lot - declaring it a "Fire Emergency lane" was the wrong thing to do, I do see Gus as the more conservative member of the Selectboard at this time.  I believe that he did the right thing, along with Connie Grant, in firing Evans Juris; as a result, we have a far better person in that role (heh! - one that DOES know how to turn on a laptop!).  Gus has had the taxpayers' in mind as new policies have been rolled out that will save the taxpayers money far into the future, such as replacing the COLA with merit raises and having employees increasing their share of their healthcare costs (just as we in the private sector are having to do). He also was instrumental in starting the process to have the Town's expenses put out on the website for all of the townfolk to see.  Please vote for Gus!
  

• This was a bit harder, but our take for Moderator is for Sandra.  She has served in many capacities, she knows the issues, and she knows the "players" and the townfolk.  Further, we believe that she is a better fit overall for the community.  Heh!  She also, from years of practice, has the skill set that can prove to be helpful for when the Deliberative Session may turn out to have folks similar in temperment to those she oversaw for years...Please vote for Sandra!

• I believe that the Budcomm has done a good job over the last few years; I no longer do the "cringe dance with the semi-annual envelope" when the Town sends out tax bills.  However, that oversight cannot go lax.  I am not convinced that better times are around the corner as national policies are racking up stratospheric debts and less than an anemic job outlook, those in control in Concord are continuing their beat down on small businesses and adding new fees and taxes in desperation to keep their 30% higher budget expenditures from causing them more political grief.  And the County isn't helping lately either.  Thus, it is our thought that Chan, Pat, and Dave will be best at maintaining a lid on budget increases. While I don't know Pat personally, I have spoken to more than a few folks that do - he comes highly recommended.  While Chan may not be AS conservative as I, he belongs on the BudComm.  And knowing Dave as I do, and having read his many Letters to the Editor over the past few years, I know that he will put the taxpayers first.  Please vote for Chan, Pat, and Dave!

• I have had my spats Derek while he was the School Board rep when I was first elected - especially over the inclusion of Football into the budget AFTER we were all reminded that the original sponsors had promised that taxpayers would never have to pay for that program.  I believe that his emphasis to push programs forward, regardless of the cost, needs to be countered.  I also believe in term limits - time for voters to implement such and that is one reason for endorsing Conrad.  On the other hand, I have known Don for a while now, having listened to his "back to basic" messages at several TEA Party meetings.  While they were on the topic of Government, I also agree with his campaign tag line: "Basics First".  I have often reported on the NECAP scores here; until our students (and a vast majority of them!) have mastered the fundamentals, the District should not be moving to new methodologies.  Frankly, Derek's comment during the Q&A period about "new math" was ingenious - certainly most would agree that the current methods have not worked lately and the test scores show that.  Back to Basics?  Indeed!  Please vote for Conrad and Don!

I will have more to say concerning Dale Dormody and Margo Weeks tomorrow and why I have made the decisions above.

With respect to the School Board Warrants: Coming Real Soon!

With respect to the Town Warrants (non-Zoning issue ones): Coming Real Soon!

Posted by Skip at 10:00 PM | Permalink

My name is Don Pangburn and I am running for the Gilford School Board. I have 3 children currently in the Gilford public schools and am alarmed at the available statistics that speak to the current state of our educational system.

Four months after taking office, President Abraham Lincoln wrote about the purpose of government. He said that the foremost purpose of government is “to elevate the condition of men—to lift artificial weights from all shoulders, to clear paths of laudable pursuit for all; to afford all an unfettered start and a fair chance in the race of life.” Although referencing the principles upon which our nation was founded, he also described the spirit that must animate people today, if we are to give every child in America the chance to rise and succeed in life.

Ronald Reagan once observed that: “If you believe your local school district is better qualified to run your schools than is the federal government you’d better get ready to do battle. … [The proposed education department would] create a bureaucracy of gigantic size to oversee thousands and thousands of public schools now administered by local school districts.”

Since the inception of the department of education, on October 17, 1979, under President Carter, the spending per student has quadrupled, but consider the results:

In a math bee of 24,000 thirteen year old students from America, South Korea, the United Kingdom, Spain, Ireland and Canada, all chosen at random, the same 63 question exam was given in their native language. When testing was complete, the American kids placed last, with South Korea winning the contest. Prior to the testing the children were asked to answer a yes or no question: Am I good at math?  Two-thirds of American kids answered yes and only one quarter of the South Korean kids expressed confidence in their skills. The argument could be made that these results and self-assessments correlate with the attitude of the educational establishment. Those in charge of educating our children are overly confident—even arrogant—about their enlightened modern methods and theories but the results don’t lend support to their self-assessment.

Another example is the third International Mathematics and Science study, a worldwide competition among 21 nations. America’s twelfth graders performed well below the international average, and in math finished in 19th place, outperforming only students from Cyprus and South Africa.

Even more disturbing statistics show that two out of every three 17 year-olds did not know the meaning of the Emancipation Proclamation.  Only half even recognized Patrick Henry’s challenge, “give me liberty or give me death”, and even fewer knew of the Marshall Plan that saved Europe, the War of 1812 or Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society”.

In 1998 the Massachusetts Department of Education introduced a new exam for the licensing of would be teachers, most of whom had received a bachelor of education degree shortly before. Of the 1800 who took the test, 59% flunked.

On the local level things are not much better. Quoting the NECAP test scores in Gilford Grade 11 for the last 3 Calendar years the results are pathetic. From best to worst:

All these statistics paint a very grim picture but beg the question: if we are so inept at educating our children, how have we been able to maintain dominance in the world of high tech? Unfortunately the answer is that we rely on the foreign students who regularly beat us in world competition.

While our public schools leave most youngsters behind, the nation still has the finest technical institutions, such as MIT, Cal Tech, Carnegie Mellon and others, which attract the brightest minds from around the globe. Only a tiny segment of our students make it to these elite schools, with foreign students taking up the slack.  Of the roughly 13,000 PhD’s awarded every year in physics, computer science, mathematics, chemistry and engineering, 45% go to non-American citizens. In the vital high tech fields of computer science and engineering their number is above 50%.

So what to do?

• Raising the bar on the providers rather than lowering it on the recipients would create measurable results.
  
• Eliminating the tenure system and replacing it with a meritocracy wherein teachers would hold their positions or advance, and receive compensation based the academic success of their students.
  

Effecting this kind of change against the entrenched establishment will be a daunting task, but if our children are really the priority, we can return our educational establishments to their past greatness and elevate our own future generations to be the brightest and best throughout the world.

The consequences of doing nothing will cripple the future generation’s ability to solve the multitude of problems heaped upon them by the errors of past—and present—generations.

We have lost sight of the fact that the educational system has three parts: the provider, the participant and the people who fund it. Ronald Reagan summed it like this:

“Personally, I believe in academic freedom but oppose limiting it to any one segment of academia. The teacher who interprets it as covering only the teacher’s right to teach is ignoring the student’s academic freedom and the right of parents to have some say as to what their children are learning. Then there is the academic freedom of those who finance the whole operation and have some beliefs about the kind of schooling they wish to make available with their contributions — all these are entitled to some share of academic freedom.”  (Letter to the editor of PEGASUS, Eureka, Illinois, March 31, 1971).

Respectfully submitted,

Donald H Pangburn

School Board Candidate

Posted by Skip at 10:41 PM | Permalink

2010 Gilford Candidate Night - School Board candidates make their case for your votes: Conrad Hans, Don Pangburn, Derek Tomlinson:

Posted by Skip at 08:49 PM | Permalink

2010 Gilford Candidate Night - Budget Committee candidates make their case for your votes: Margo Weeks, Gus Benevides, Joe Hoffman:

Posted by Skip at 08:40 PM | Permalink

2010 Gilford Candidate Night - Moderator candidates make their case for your votes: Dennis Corrigan, Joe Hoffman, Sandra McGonagle:

Posted by Skip at 08:36 PM | Permalink

2010 Gilford Candidate Night - Budget Committee candidates make their case for your votes: Dave Horvath, Mark Correy, Dale Dormody:

I spoke to Dale "Chan" Eddy tonight by phone: his plan was to have been there but a family emergency called him to Tilton and was unable to make it back to Gilford in time.

Posted by Skip at 08:31 PM | Permalink

2010 Gilford Candidate Night - Q&A Session - candidate for Supervisor of the Checklist.  Connie Moses was the only candidate that showed up for any of the open slots for Supervisor of the Checklist:

Posted by Skip at 08:28 PM | Permalink

2010 Gilford Candidate Night - Q&A Session - candidates and audience members ask questions of the other candidates.  No, there was not much time - I was only able to ask one question about the NECAP scores of the candidates for School Board; I had a raft of questions for the others as well.  After the meeting, a lot of others were wishing it had gone longer (Connie had a whole LIST of questions!).

This also has Joe being escorted out of the meeting by Steve Colchord as well...

Posted by Skip at 08:23 PM | Permalink

Yup, right on time - Joe Hoffman decides to be Joe and gets tossed.  Any analogy to "I paid for this microphone" are completely random (and accidental):

I agree with the statement that I heard "we'll all miss him when he's gone".  Wishes for good health for this 80 year old (and the 'Grok does wonder what WOULD happen if he got elected as Moderator)...

Posted by Skip at 07:41 PM | Permalink

 I will be supporting Gus Benavides for Selectmen because he has proven that he can make difficult decisions that are clearly in the best interest of the Gilford community. In just three short years, Gus has been instrumental in putting the right management in place to improve the operation of the town. While other communities are faced with either increasing taxes or cutting budgets, Gilford has experienced reasonable budgets while delivering excellent services. Gus Benavides has been a key component of managing the quality of services Gilford residents enjoy. Gus has been very involved in Gilford’s capital improvement plan that was crafted by the dedicated volunteers that make up the CIP Committee. The Selectmen appointed this committee to make sure Gilford can deliver its excellent services into the future without creating massive spikes in our budget. Now is not the time to vote for a candidate that is either unaware of this plan or advocating spending above the CIP plan. 

 The simple fact that Gus enjoys the support of many of our town’s employees is a testament to the management that Gus has been instrumental in creating. Gus has worked hard to earn the trust of the voters and I believe the voters of Gilford should reward him with another term as their Selectmen.

Please join me in voting for Gus Benavides for Gilford Selectmen on Tuesday March 9, 2010. 

Posted by Terry S. at 06:43 PM | Permalink