Confession of a Fiscal Conservative.
By Jim Conley • Sep 11th, 2008 • Category: Campaigns, News and UpdatesRemember Tony Friscia, the self-described “fiscal conservative” who converted to the need for a Proposition 2.5 override by virtue of having served on the Selectman’s sham study group? He wrote an op-ed in the TAB which was reprinted by the town government proxy group “Yes for Brookline” in several forms.
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Give Me Swelter.
By Jim Conley • Sep 9th, 2008 • Category: Campaigns, News and UpdatesThe TAB has an item [read here] which says the Brookline Schools will spend $50 thousand to cool the high school auditorium while town meeting is in session. The 50K will go to the purchase of four portable air conditioners because some members complained that it was too hot last time they met to rubberstamp the town administration’s raid on the treasury.
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Strange Hoodoo.
By Jim Conley • Aug 31st, 2008 • Category: Campaigns, Lead ColumnWith Hurricane Gustav bearing down on the Gulf Coast and the National Association of War-craven Crazy People (i.e., the Republican Party) meeting in St. Paul, I’ve reprised a column I wrote for the Brookline TAB after Hurricane Katrina.
That was when 15 hundred (mostly black and poor) people died. It was also when we learned that emergency plans need to be executed by trained emergency personnel rather than political hacks. It’s all a rather strange magic, these events lining up as they are.
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Spooner Road Decision Affirms Town’s Zoning By-law.
By Jim Conley • Aug 4th, 2008 • Category: Campaigns, News and UpdatesThe Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has affirmed Brookline’s Zoning By-law where it concerns the manner under which attic space is included in calculations of appropriate building size.
The Court has affirmed the decision of the Land Court, which essentially held that restrictions on the bulk of buildings relative to their lot size are not restrictions (if incidental) on the internal area of a residence; in this case the private development at 81 Spooner Road.
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Guest Column: Systemic Accountability
By Archie Mazmanian • May 21st, 2008 • Category: Campaigns, Previous Columns, SchoolsHow effective are Brookline’s TMMs as its legislature meeting only one or twice each year as compared to the frequency with which Newton’s legislature (i.e. the Aldermen) meet? Newton’s aldermen are in a position to challenge its mayor more readily and more frequently than can Brookline’s TMMs challenge its Selectmen. In addition, in Brookline the town moderator exerts significant controls over TMs, both annual and special, which can stifle debate. (The town moderator, elected for a 3-year terms, not only presides over TMs, but also appoints members of the Advisory Committee and various other committees.)
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Fear and Loathing.
By Jim Conley • May 6th, 2008 • Category: Campaigns, Override Ballot, PoliticsI’m going to do something uncharacteristic and let some time pass before I take up tonight’s election results.
In the meantime, two points. I’m reminded this evening of when, during Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 911″, Congressman Jim McDermott said: “You can get people to do anything if you scare them enough.” The override campaign worked [...]
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Unofficial Results.
By Jim Conley • May 6th, 2008 • Category: CampaignsFrom the Clerk’s office at 9:30 PM:
Nancy Daly - 5042
Gilbert Hoy - 4381
Richard Benka - 5201
Both Overrides Pass
Question A - 5999 / Yes 3591 No
Question B - 5236 Yes / 4305 No
Time to redouble the effort.
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Election Update.
By Jim Conley • May 6th, 2008 • Category: Campaigns, PoliticsTown Clerk Pat Ward has issued turnout figures for today’s election (as of 5:00 PM). Right now, we’re at 25 percent. Turnout highest in precincts One (28%), Six (28%) and Sixteen (32%). Virtually non-existent, by comparison, in precincts Seven (19%), Ten (16%) and Eleven (19%).
It’s rare for a local election (non-override) [...]
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Election Day Message.
By Jim Conley • May 6th, 2008 • Category: Campaigns, PoliticsWho will provide the grand design?
What is yours and what is mine?
‘Cause there is no more new frontier,
We have got to make it here.
We satisfy our endless needs and
Justify our bloody deeds,
In the name of destiny and in the name
of God.
And you can see them there,
On Sunday morning.
They stand up and sing about
What it’s like [...]
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Blowback (2).
By Jim Conley • May 5th, 2008 • Category: Brookline Selectmen, Campaigns, Gil Hoy, Nancy Daly, PoliticsI’ve never quite understood how this works, but apparently there’s a movement afoot on the part of Gil Hoy supporters to “bullet” their votes. I don’t know if the message being sent is in support of Hoy or out of anger towards the TAB for running last Thursday’s hit piece on badge flashing.
[An aside: [...]
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On the Brookline Override (2).
By Jim Conley • May 5th, 2008 • Category: Brookline Advisory Committee, Campaigns, Override Ballot, Politics, Schools, Town FinancesEndorsement are the name of the campaign game in Brookline; and those pushing for tomorrow’s override have assembled an impressive list of town hall hacks to urge a yes vote.
Among the groups saying Yes! to an override is a majority of the town’s advisory committee members. What is the advisory committee, you ask? [...]
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On Brookline Selectman Nancy Daly.
By Jim Conley • May 5th, 2008 • Category: Brookline Selectmen, Brookline Zoning, Campaigns, Gil Hoy, Jesse Mermell, Nancy Daly, Politics, Robert Allen, St. Aidan'sOh, where to begin.
If, after reading this site, for even the shortest period of time a voter is confused on the merits of re-electing Nancy Daly to the Brookline Board of Selectmen, let me put it to you this way — there are none.
Nancy Daly is nothing if not contemptuous of the public interest. [...]
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Release the Poll Results.
By Jim Conley • May 4th, 2008 • Category: Betsy DeWitt, Brookline Selectmen, Campaigns, Override Ballot, SchoolsI’ve been reporting that the Brookline selectmen (at least one anyway) used the results of a survey paid for by the pro-override group “Yes for Brookline” to construct the questions we’ll be looking at on Tuesday.
Big deal? Well, yes if you think that the ballot ought to reflect what we need, not what will [...]
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The Wild West of Brookline.
By Jim Conley • May 3rd, 2008 • Category: Campaigns, Override Ballot, St. Aidan'sHere we go again with more St. Aidan’s nonsense.
Remember how the Town of Brookline and the Boston Archdiocese agreed to protect the copper beech tree at the site of the housing project they are building? And remember, as the result of a conservation and preservation easement, the developers erected a fence around the [...]
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Outrage Is So Relative.
By Jim Conley • May 2nd, 2008 • Category: Brookline Selectmen, Campaigns, Override BallotApparently, to the town hall apologists, the post below is much ado about nothing. Of course, we’re in the ethical realm here and that will always be lost on our local government’s groupies. Let me break it down for less addled readers.
First, the organization “Yes for Brookline” is financed largely by town government [...]
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