Not everyone is happy about it, but the Greenfield Town Council did make history this past Thursday when it became the first council of the mayoral era to reduce a mayor’s operating budget request.
The council leadership didn’t get anything close to the $202,000 in cuts it proposed, nor the $189,000 recommended by the Ways and Means Committee. But it did manage to reduce the budget by more than $57,000, imposing a financial check previously unused by its predecessors. To those whose budgets were set to be reduced, the proposed reductions were the epitome of micro-management, and borderline insulting to a group of dedicated town employees who have historically had to do more with less, even when economic times were good.
That position is completely understandable. What is less so is the resistance from certain councilors, who seem to feel it’s not their job to question the mayor’s numbers. But if it’s not their job, to whom does the responsibility fall?
I had an opportunity to get a look at the initial cut list forwarded by Council President Brickett Allis and Vice President Isaac Mass, and though some made more sense than others, there wasn’t anything on there which I would consider outlandish. Nor was there anything which couldn’t be defended, which is the entire point of the budget process. People should have to answer questions about certain expenditures, especially ones which involve the addition of personnel — that may or may not be needed — and duplication of services that might otherwise be handled in a more affordable manner.
Some might feel this latest bout of budget vigilance is more about politics than responsible governance. I don’t necessarily buy that. Not completely. The fact is, the residents of Greenfield are pretty tired of seeing their tax bills go up, while services remain the same or are reduced. There is also still a feeling that the town is spending too much money, although the mayor has done a better job recently in explaining how the town’s long and short term debt factor into the overall capital plan.
The electorate’s frustration tends to exacerbate at the end of each fiscal year, when the town ends up with fistfuls of certified “free cash,” money left over after the town pays its bills for the year. Last year, that windfall was around $4 million. This year, it’s likely to be closer to $2 million — not as much, but still a pretty sizable chunk of change, certainly more than enough to backfill any of the proposed cuts deemed too Draconian by the affected departments.
Let’s also not forget that the voters were the ones who chose this council, and I’m pretty sure they didn’t do so with the expectation that its members would simply genuflect whenever the mayor dropped a spreadsheet in front of them. They’d clearly seen enough of that on the last pass. This new council — or at least the leadership of same — clearly got the message from the people who elected them that the legislative arm of Greenfield government needs to be more of an equal player than they have historically been, especially when it comes time to spend money of which this town never seems to have enough.
Like most people, I was shocked to hear of the apparent suicide of former Greenfield DPW Superintendent John Bean.
I covered Greenfield both for this newspaper and for WHAI in the late 1990s when Bean ran that department, and I had the opportunity to interview him on a number of occasions and to see him in action, mainly in front of selectmen. He always struck me as a very competent manager who understood the town and how important his department was to maintaining its quality of life. I always felt like he would have made a great town manager had Norm Thidemann retired earlier than he did.
My heart goes out to his family, and to the people who knew and worked with John. He was one of the good ones.
The “big redhead” is back in the arena, and on the national stage no less.
Former Republican Massachusetts Gov. William Weld last weekend received the vice presidential nomination of the Libertarian Party, and will run alongside former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson in the presidential election this November.
In most elections, a Libertarian ticket, or any other third party for that matter, is an extreme long-shot to win the big prize, and this year looks to be no different. This is no ordinary election cycle, however. This year, we have presumptive Democratic and Republican nominees who are so wildly unpopular in their own parties it may very well force a lot of their base supporters to go shopping for a new candidate.
That could be very good news for Johnson and Weld, two former governors with serious executive experience who no longer fit in with the more extreme ideology of what is now passing for the so-called “major” parties.
The Libertarians aren’t likely to get to 270 on the Electoral College map, but it’s possible with enough defections, they could prevent Trump or Clinton from doing the same, leaving the task of choosing the next chief executive to Paul Ryan and the House of Representatives, a prospect that right about now is polling in the single digits in most national job approval ratings.
As a wise man once said, “may you live in interesting times,” which we certainly appear to be in for over the course of the next five months, and probably well beyond.
Chris Collins, who worked in local radio in a number of capacities, has observed political life in Franklin County for years. He also is a former staff reporter for The Recorder and a Greenfield native.