Jay, And Other Low Hanging Fruit

December 24, 2008

Hey Reader, no doubt you saw councilman Jay Wenk’s latest letter to a local paper (not the one I work for, sadly). Here it is:

Dear Editor,
The article in last week's issue on the Elna proposal needs some fleshing out. Firstly, there is absolutely no question that some of our employees and departments are working in unsafe and dangerously crowded conditions. There was an impromptu motion made at our meeting last Tuesday to move ahead with the Elna project and I want to list my reasons for voting no. This problem has been in existence for a long, long time, and the previous Town Board headed by Jeremy Wilber moved ahead with a plan to rehabilitate the Town Hall. Bob Young was hired to do the architectural work. Well over $200,000 was sunk into that project, with no discernable gain; in other words, that money went into the toilet. Based on Young's estimate for the job, the Town had a referendum to raise the money but the actual cost was about 40 percent higher than the estimate. Remember that Wilber was the one who ignored a Town appointed siting committee for the cell tower and also made a contract with JNS that cut the Town out from significant funds. On a walk through at Elna, I mentioned to Young that the building was huge, cavernous and out of scale with our needs. He responded that many of the employees' demands were "bloated."
I expect to avoid past mistakes and oversights. I don't have confidence in Bob Young to do what we need to do. I'm not in favor of removing a valuable tax-paying building from the rolls. While it may pan out that Elna is the right place, if not some other place or project, I will need some other consultants to advise the Board. I am looking forward in the very near future to having expert opinion come in. This situation can and will be resolved by the present Board, without resorting to impromptu motions to vote for old failures.

Jay Wenk
Woodstock



Jay’s first response, made at the December 16 town board meeting, to what he described as “absolutely no question… some of our employees and departments are working in unsafe and dangerously crowded conditions” was much more direct: “Something must be done but I don’t know what.”

This second response, made after what had to have been some deep thinking contains soft, even poignant digressions. Yes, it’s like Old Pappy, you remember him, after he took out his teeth and lit a pipe and not let facts importune his fuddled stream of memory.

The “previous” town board spent just under, not “well over” $200,000 in preparing a detailed plan for the Town Hall renovation. It is still an obscene amount of money, no question, but planning for municipal projects is never cheap (for instance, how many of you perform environmental assessments before you renovate?). The expenditure included engineering and architectural services to be rendered during the actual renovation. The expenditures were approved by unanimous consent of the town board.

The “previous” town board projected a cost of $1.6 million, financed by a $1.45 bond and $150,000 cash on hand.

About three hundred residents, who cared enough --about a 7% turnout, -- came out to vote in December 2007. A little over 60% approved the plan.

The new town board waited until March to put the project out to bid.

The bids came back with a $2 million tab. This is called a “cost over run.” Almost every municipal project of any significance runs into one. Our last example was the highway garage.

The new town board got the bids whittled down to $1.8 million.

The new town board could have (with a minimum of 3 votes) adopted a resolution raising the $1.6 cap to $1.8, subject to permissive referendum. This is what the “previous” town board did with the highway garage. Had the new town board done so by about this time we would have a renovated Town Hall.

THE NEW TOWN BOARD DIDN’T.

The new town board did adopt Jay’s a no-idling resolution, and act of supreme irony.

Perhaps embarrassed by his very small accomplishments in his year on the board, Jay chooses to find fault with the “previous” one. He barely disguises his desperation. Thrown into the turmoil of “some of our employees and departments… working in unsafe and dangerously crowded conditions,” and the expectation that he do something about it, Jay, with a more than passing resemblance to Bush, pops us with “Remember that Wilber was the one who ignored a Town appointed siting committee for the cell tower and also made a contract with JNS that cut the Town out from significant funds.”

Yes, Wilber, he of the "previous" town board!

This is oddness to a level even extreme by Woodstock standards. It’s like someone promising to talk about grapes, when all of a sudden a big casaba pops out of his mouth.

He is talking about Liz Simonson’s recommendation to build a cell tower at the old dump, a lovely idea that dead-ended on the realization that not one single carrier would put an antenna on a tower in that location (apparently bears and deer don’t use cell phones). Ask Liz. With respect to the tower built on California Quarry, which did not cost the Town one penny to build, he forgets (Jay’s forgetfulness is truly something to be concerned with) that the planning board mandated a tower design that cost the builder much more money to erect, and so yes, the Town gave up its share of the revenue for the first five years.

Maybe what Jay is really saying is the “previous” town board did something and should be ashamed of themselves, and the new town board, which has done nothing should be praised for it.

Old Pappy, after he took out his teeth and lit up the pipe would think like this.

By the way, don’t you just adore Jay’s use of “firstly”? It sits out there like Pappy's teeth in a jar because even after the most thorough, forensic search of his soft, poignant letter one cannot find “secondly,” or as Jay might put it, “secondarily.”