11/10/2006

What's the plan Nancy?

Well they screamed and hollered for the last year or so about President Bush having no "Plan" for Iraq. Then the new, soon to be Speaker of the house was asked on a news interview just what was the Dems plan for Iraq, she stammered and stuttered, couldn't come up with an answer and changed the subject! Come on Nancy what's the plan?
She also put out a list of what she was going to accomplish in her first 100 HOURS, not days, of her assuming her new position. One of them was that she is going to remove America's dependency on foreign oil and put us in the position of energy independancy! Guess that means she IS going to allow oil drilling in the AWR, which she voted against in the past. Hell maybe she is going to go down to Veneszuela and give old Hugo some straight "grandmotherly" advice. Or something else. In 100 hours? Damn Nancy, what sort of favors have YOU been passing out behind closed doors to make a statement like that? If you can do it, I'll vote a straight Dem ticket in '08!
On old BI, I am pretty happy with the results except one. A totally new council would have been really good, but with at least four level heads, maybe some of the things needing to be done will begin to happen. Beginning with a total and complete accountability of the final numbers on the school. It doesn't have to be withheld till the litigation is finished, because we are going to have to expend ALL the money allocated to the project. Probably more!
Negotiations and resolution of the remaining problems with the school are still going on. Some of the problems have been resolved to our satisfaction, while a couple of the thorniest ones remain in dispute as to whosee problems they are. Roof leaks being one of them. But yesterday the roofing company guys spent the day fixing, or at least attempting to fix them. We shall see after a couple of good hard horizontal rainstorms how they fared.
Thats IT For Now! Thanks for all the responses to the last post. They made for interesting reading.

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

The pressing question about school is now that at least 3 of the sub-contractors that have not been paid have called the bond - how are they going to get paid when they are owed more than the amount that was held back?

Sam said...

Hey Everett I thought you were talking about Nancy Dodge all along. Oh, the top half was about Nancy Pelosi from California! And then, the bottom half wasn't about any Nancies at all. Whew, for an old man you sure dance pretty fast.

By the way, retainage for the prime contractor is basically about 10 percent and that should be his or her profit, not to pay people in arrears. So something is terribly, terribly wrong. /Sammy

Anonymous said...

Somehow or another the prime contractor managed to negotiate their way down to 2% retainage - this job will haunt the Town and the School Committe for years...

Sam said...

Um, 2 percent? I thought they got most the drugs off the Island in that last big bust. There's a bid bond, a performance bond, and a 10% retainage. That's the way, period. I hate to say it, but you gave away the farm and now the more work that is required, the more you WILL pay for. Who was the manager for the Town?

InsideIslander said...

No one out here gives a shit Sam. Our town government is Bull. The TM will lie and deceive and then look at people with disdain who dare have the audacity to question her good judgment. the School is a total joke. Hello? They signed a contract without even getting a guaranteed final number. This does not even pass the "smell test."

It is like having to admit one of your family members is an addict. The way you do it is to look at the facts and pretend you don't know the person. Well folks, look at the facts and pretend it is not your town. Anywhere else you would scream CORRUPTION! Do you think payoffs and backroom deals are not possible because this is Block Island. Being in a place where people don't think it is possible makes it all the more easy. Is it incompetence or corruption?

How many shady things are there out here. Can everyone who reads this blog just post one thing that goes on that seems a little off to them. Who knows it may just be incompetence.

I'll start.

Does everyone know that the town, of course through the town manager, has made an agreement with Interstate Navigation that they no longer have to pay a landing fee based on how many people come over here. The payment the town gets is a flat rate of I believe 75ish thousand per year. Apparently Interstate claimed that it was too hard to track how many people come over here per year...with their computer systems that must be real difficult. Because interstate is a public utility they can only keep a certain percent of their profits...this gives them a huge motivation to not declare how many people come over and slip cash out the back door...And what happens after the agreement is signed? Nancy Dodge's husband gets a job running the docks for interstate.

Please, anyone else who has information of corruption, or what may appear as corruption and is just incompetence, post. Knowledge is the only way this will stop.

Everett said...

Too insideslander, good comments!!It is sure to draw the ire of some of we locals. Have you started a blog? I tried looking for you through blogspot but no joy.How do I find you? If you are not in the blog business yet, you should be!! Email me, I'd love to talk to you, and no revealing who you are!! I am at elittle@verizon.net.
I'll have to say that the revelation about the Interstate deal was total news to me! Talk about giving free rein to a skimming the cash deal! I may have related this story before, but for newer readers here it is again. One day I was going to go clamming out on the spit of land behind Wronoski's house and just happened to look down into the burn barrell as I was walking past and noticed what appeared to be a bunch of twenty dollar bills laying there. So I reached in and pulled up a whole stack of partially burned 20's! There was only the corners of them left, but it was a goodly amount. Now why in hell would any body be burning money? Oh yeah, I guess the money bag got thrown in the fire instead of the one with the computer tapes and receipt tapes. I wonder who made that little mistake?

Everett said...

BTW, isn't it funny how they can't keep track of a simple thing like number of passengers when it comes to paying the town, but there is no problem when it comes to how many there were or were not, wher it comes time to put a new rate structure before the PUC. Something smells to high hell here and I don't think it is the Limberger(sp) chees in the galley!They have the demographics for that right down to how many people farted or puked on the way over!!

Sam said...

Well I won't step into your island's situation ... but I'd be careful on what you call it.

The TM usually has some ability to negotiate for the best price and value for the town ... in fact it is a requirement of the job.

What happens, and let me say this about out little Island and not yours, is that some of these little "negotiations" don't come to the light of day until further down the road.

Sometimes there are "sushine" rules because in many cases these acts could have been done better if they "saw the light of day," that is shared with the public in an open manner.

Here's an example from our Island. Back in the mid to late 1970's, owners of bayside lands were encouraged to construct bulwarks at the end of the public streets. Each house on either side did their part and now the Island is built up, as as time passed, the bulwarks need fixing because they're falling down.

Well along comes a gentleman that says WHEN WE BUILT THOSE BULWARKS THE TM GAVE US THE TITLE RIGHTS TO THE BULKHEAD ITSELF.

There's nothing written in the deeds, plats, titles, or descriptions, but these folks say they own all those street end bulkheads now. In Texas, verbal contracts are legal!!!!

So we're about to go to court for no good reason ... hey does any of this sound remotely familiar?

InsideIslander said...

Everette,

Your last post raises even more suspicion about Interstate. If they are cooking the books, then they most certainly are underreporting their ridership.

Interstate is using their low profits as an excuse to raise rates. If all of their profits were reported accurately, then they would not be able to approach the DPUC and request as much of a rate increase, or even any rate increase for that matter.

Therefore, not only does the Town's agreement with Interstate allow them to underreport ridership and hide cash, it lowers the revenues from the landing fee the town receives, and this Town enabled cash hiding is allowing Interstate to raise rates on us all even more.

Just who are the decision makers in this town looking out for?

Anonymous said...

in respects to suspicious decisions made by the town I don't understand the low fine that Sam Peckhams was charged for adding on an illegal addition to there condos. $30,000. is very a very low amount to pay when they are getting as good a view and adding a lot to the amount they can sell the condos for.

Anonymous said...

Nancy Dodge and Kim Gaffet are very good friends. Now Kim is her boss.

Anonymous said...

Back to Nancy P's plan. I was tickled to see that at her very first attempt at king making see got kicked in the gut! The fact that the Dems decided to put Hoyner(sp) in as the Majority whip guy should be a real definitive declaration on just what most of them think about M. Murtha! Time for that good ole' boy to go pack to the Pocono's and and make some more moonshine! Oh damn, there were 80-81 of the so far left leaners voting for him, he'll take that as a mandate to inflict as much more mayhem as he can before he croaks.
Here is a thought to think about for the next two elections. DO NOT VOTE FOR ANY INCUMBENT!

Anonymous said...

Does that go for BI too?

Sam said...

Naw, it means Everett is still a little sore about the dismal showing of the GOP on Election Day ... in the national races, even though five insiders were tossed out of the BI elections.

What happened was Nancy Pelosi should have kept her darn mouth shut but she openly campaigned for Murtha to be House Majority Leader. Most Democrats voted against Murtha because he had some major corruption issues dating back to Ab-Scam (buying legislators for $50,000, which caught a few).

So what it showed was that Democrats can at least think for themselves, unlike the previous practices in the GOP House, which was policed by Tom "The Hammer" DeLay.

I'm glad for once we have some thinkers instead of some rubber stampers for a chicken-hawk administration, myself.

Now Everett, before you get that steam coming out your ears again, I really don't think the Democrats can instantly solve . . . much of anything! It will take time and the moderates will have to duke it out, not your rabid-dog extremists.

/Sammy

Anonymous said...

Well all the national blogs guys with millions of hits per day are saying that the House majority now being democrats, may have finally gone over too the side of 'rationality' in that more than half are considered to be more conserative than the crazy way left wingers led by grandma Pelosi. Some of even her champion blogs preceeding the election are now forecasting a max time in her position of 18 months before the rational elements shitcans her to the ass(no mispelling)heap of history. I don't think now, and never have, that ALL dems are some kind of nuts. Mostly just that west coast breed. Can't wait for her next gaffe and complete mis-reading of how the wind is blowing. I don't think she is as smart as she believes herself to be. Time will tell. TIFN

Sam said...

Well said my friend, and you can bet that Mr. Hoyer, the new majority leader in the House, is well respected and quite moderate as compared to those California wing-nuts!

And you know, that was remarkable because Hoyer is a Maryland Blue Democrat, not some Southern Yellow Dog or some California Fruitcake. People like him because he builds consensus - a rather nice chap.

If Pelosi and that Dean guy would just fade away I'd be happy. I don't care who does the job as long as we get a smaller, more efficient government, more rational taxes, and a better future for our kids...

InsideIslander said...

Sam,

Democrats stand for big government. Come to think of it, so do the Republicans now too!

We need a third party of centrists. Hopefully the religious right will sink a moderate republican in the primary (McCain) and he will split from the Republicans and form a new cnetrist party with someone of the likes of Joe Biden.


mmmm. McCain/Biden would form an unbeatable ticket.

There was a great quote in Newsweek last week.

"Once again it has been proven that the G-spot of the American body politic is in the middle."

We have no use for idealogs, either on the far right or the far left.

Sam said...

That was a very astutue comment.

That said, I don't know if right, center, or left is the real distinction. Amercians are getting tired of career politicians, including the likes of McCain. That affects politics of all colors and permutations. I am beginning to think like Everett and say "let's throw the bums out after two or three terms."

What I am saying is that the longer you stay in politics, the more opportunity for the lobbyists to tempt you to make bad decisions. Politicians are just regular old people after all, not some gods up on a mountain. You have to learn how to deal with the devil. Some get caught and most don't.

And what is "the lobby?" Lobbyists are a combination of snake oil salesmen and retired or unelected politicians who attempt to bribe legislators for votes. It is a billion dollar industry. It it perfectly legal and it works.

The lobby had predicted a major shift in the makeup of the US House and Senate and have already begun working on the new crop of sheep. It is a billion dollar industry and they have to meet their bottom line.

I don't see what being left, center, or right has to do with that big old mess, until the lobby is outlawed. /Sam