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1. Catherine
   Member

   Apparently we had 10K to give a consultant to write the LTSFC's report, although all members were perfectly literate. Money for all kinds of consultants and lawyers, and if they don't get more, the flag and the Easter Bunny will have to pay. They even admit this is an attention-grabbing tactic! Well, I can live without Easter Bunny or righties and lefties slugging it out at the parade.

   I think those 4th of July guys had only a few jobs in mind for government:

   INFRASTRUCTURE
   PUBLIC SAFETY
   PUBLIC SCHOOLS

   In a town that is a national historic landmark architecture district, I think it is safe to add stewardship of that, for which they do get a lot of private help.

   http://www.chicagosuburbannews.com/riverside/news/x2130791167

   Posted Monday Oct 29, 2007 17:07 #

2. spatny
   Member

   They could pick up $50K easy if they paid $60K instead of $90K at the rec dept. and had only a part time assistant. That place is a real sink hole for funds. Talk about a fiefdom...

   Posted Monday Oct 29, 2007 21:42 #

3. riversider
   Member

   “People accuse us of being frivolous with their money ... then you don't get a Fourth of July parade,— Grace said. “I don't think residents realize this is a crisis ... sometimes you have to do something that gets their attention.—

   Wow, are we four years old again? Sounds like retribution to me.

   Reminds me of the CTA and their doomsday scenarios for cutting service in the very near future. Announce you're going to cut a bunch of critical services and people will pay attention.

   Posted Tuesday Oct 30, 2007 00:50 #

4. Catherine
   Member

   Looks like everything is back in. Here's something they managed to cut:

   "The village will, however, eliminate a perk for its non-union employees, which pays an annual bonus for anyone holding an advanced degree. Employees can get up to a 2-percent annual bonus for obtaining college degrees. Eliminating the perk for non-union employees will save the village roughly $15,000."

   YOU have to wonder how many chunks of lard there are like this in the budget.

   http://www.rblandmark.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&ArticleID=3130&TM=61103.04

   Posted Wednesday Oct 31, 2007 16:03 #

5. Synergist
   Inactive

   I agree that the current monetary duress that the village is in is horrendous. How dare the village compensate people for having a higher education? Such inconsistencies in the budget could lead to cracks elsewhere such as the police department or the Riverside relocation bureau. God help us if that goes down; our town would be infested with non-WASPs.

   On another note, the town's monetary defcon color should be changed to dark red. This is a crisis people! Why cant anyone else see this? The police have only one M1 Abrams tank and two AH-64 Apache Longbows to deal with kids who are out past their curfew. Every night I pray that the village receives a brain and cuts the nonessentials such as education, little league uniforms and these aforementioned 'perks' for employees with degrees.

   Finally you are right 'riversider', the rec department is a real sinkhole for funds. Whoever said "We do not inherit the world from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children" was completely wrong. Who said that? Ah, some insipid Indians a long time ago. What we really need to sink money into are things like infared goggles for the police department, or paying people like us to complain about the most irrelevant, superfluous, self-indulging things imaginable.

   Posted Sunday Nov 4, 2007 13:32 #

6. spatny
   Member

   People moan about the schools, what they cost, what they need, but eant great educations for their kids, and like the fact that good schools raise property values - except of course, when taxes are reassessed and they have to pay more. Then we have people with no kids in the system, or oldsters suffering sticker shock, or multiple tax hits by Village, county, schools, etc. But I don't see many people leaving. What I do see is about 80 people or so volunteering their time for village government positions, and perhaps a hard core couple dozen following what they do. That's less than 200 involved out of 9,000 residents - maybe 6,000 adults. If we hadn't shot all that dough on consultants for this, that and the other thing - maybe up to a half mil f you count everything over the past couple years, we'd be better off. But our "Professional" form of management doesn't want that, and so we consider to do this stuff. It hasn't hurt us yet, but it soon will. About two-thirds of our budget go for salaries, and not many people will take a cit in pay. So what's the answer? Maybe some of the people that post under a pseudonym can tell us - I can't.

   Posted Sunday Nov 4, 2007 17:16 #

7. Synergist
   Inactive

   Sure, I can tell you, chances are you know the answers already, but then again, probably not. First off, employees of this village don't like getting a cut in pay for the simple reason that they can't get a proportional cut in the B.S. they receive daily from 'concerned citizens'. This would make their jobs substantially easier, and subsequently lower salaries. But alas, the nonsense continues year-round and the salaries remain high. So the right thing to do is to dash a benefit that promotes education in employees, that sounds about right in this town. Furthermore, these 'couple dozen hard core followers' are hardly involved. If anything they are a hinderance. Being a former civic employee and being related to one of the 80 volunteers, I can vouch on any number of occasions where an OVERLY-concerned stay at home mom/old crone with nothing better to do/person lacking brainpower above an 80 IQ from the Olmstead Society came to give us inane 'recommendations' or gave us selfish wishes. The list can continue, but for the sake of brevity I will conclude. The fault lies with these types of people in our town, what they do and how they affect its workers. The fault IS NOT at town hall. Perhaps involvement would be higher if the looney tunes kept to themselves. That being said there are sane people in this town, sadly they keep quiet... until now.

   New town slogan:
   'Village of nutcases in a forest'

   Posted Monday Nov 5, 2007 04:06 #

8. sahm
   Member

   There is no 'A' in Olmsted.

   Posted Monday Nov 5, 2007 06:08 #

9. Synergist
   Inactive

   Proof that the only thing wrong with my argument is spelling.

   *Cut is not spelled 'cit'
   * 'Announce you're going to cut a bunch of critical services and people will pay attention. ' Is not a complete sentence.

   But I guess grammar and spelling only matter if someone has a different opinion than yours.

   Posted Monday Nov 5, 2007 06:22 #

10. Tim
    Member

    Was there really an argument somewhere in there...

    ...it seemed to me to be closer to venting through sarcasm.

    Posted Monday Nov 5, 2007 06:45 #

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