Please Donate Your Unused Buckets (2)
By Jim Conley • Apr 11th, 2007 • Email This Post to a Friend •
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On this date in 2006, the Brookline Selectmen approved a grant application [view] to the US Office of Homeland Security asking for $553 thousand to purcahse new protective equipment (or turnout gear) for the firefighter force. You know, things like helmets and flashlights. In the application, town managers said that Brookline’s current equipment barely meets safety standards. [see previous post]
Scary stuff.
Well, maybe not. In their request for “Special Appropriations” to Brookline Town Meeting [view], the Selectmen and Town Administrator Richard Kelliher ask for $135 thousand in new turnout gear for the force. Wow…that equipment improved by a factor of $400 thousand in just a year’s time. (According to Homeland Security records, no award has been made to Brookline from the application. Probably because they prioritize requests according to the community’s ability to pay for the equipment on their own.)
Assuming that the Town was truthful in the funding application to the Federal Government, we have another startling case of the misaligned Brookline priorities. Because in the same motion for “Special Appropriations”, Kelliher and the Selectmen ask for $1.25 million to build a wilderness park at the former Fisher Hill Reservoir…and $16 million for a town hall renovation.
Remember that when they come to you saying there’s not enough money to adequately fund fire protection (as justification for a Proposition 2.5 tax over-ride) next year.
Jim Conley is publisher of On Brookline.
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Get and read a copy of the grant and you’ll see why the grant was denied while other surrounding commuities continue to be awarded grants, if fact Brookline was DENIED this grant. I’m sure Tony Ansalde in the Police Dept. management office can supply you with a copy of it, if he comes out from underneath his desk!
It seems as if the Town’s buckets all have holes. And the TAB reports today that there are leaks in Town Hall (real water leaks, not leaks of information the public should know). In fact Mr. Cirillo seems to think Town Hall is a “sick” building. (Query as to the role of the Building Inspectors in addressing this?) I wonder if the source of this sickness is from the Sixth Floor of the soon to be Taj M’Hall. But the rennovations may not cure the sickness. Perhaps the plug should be pulled and a new CITY HALL built at the former reservoir site at Fisher Hill and the wilderness park built at the Town Hall site (with Bobby Allen as ringmaster, of course.) Wouldn’t that be a beastly swap.