Who is holding Stratford together these days?
We have a brand-spanking new Town Council (okay, not quite so new any more) and any hope for their ability to work in a bi-partisan manner for the betterment of the Stratford people vaporized about the time they were sworn in. I won’t say all, but, it appears very divisive. A heavy-handed, highly-opinionated, head-strong Council Chair seeks to continue the “divide and conquer” and”my way or the highway” approach of the past. What will THIS Town Council do to benefit the taxpayers of Stratford? If divisiveness continues – absolutely zip, nada, zero, is what we can expect. We still have backroom deals that appointed the Chair and Chair Pro Temp (both vying for the Mayor’s seat one of these days). Backroom deals that puts people back on commissions, committees and boards (e.g., the recent push-through of Neil Sherman on the Economic Development Commission) and let’s not forget the rubber-stamping of the Board of Education budget right through to the Mayor, who just stamped it right through to the Town Council. Makes one wonder what kind of deal is on the table for the Board of Education to get all that money. We know how much the mayor wants the Sutton Place property for his Transit-Oriented Development, so, could that be the “gold earring” to giving the BOE every penny they’ve asked for? So, absolutely, we still have the deals for the budgets for both the Town and Board of Education. Seemingly, no one wants to work together to get Stratford on a better path to cut fat, cut back on all those extra items (like take-home vehicles). No one wants to tackle the real problems – years and years of tax and spend. Well guys – WE AIN’T GOT NO MORE MONEY! The over-inflated Board of Education budget. While we all agree that money SHOULD go to our children, it rarely does. It does, however, end up in the pockets of the administration (not the little guys with Collective Bargaining Agreements, but the other, non-union ones on East Broadway). Same for the Town Hall budget, let’s cut the pork fat people. Sink your teeth into it and cut it open, you’ll see all that fat.
And, if all this doesn’t make things bad enough, we still have the other “great divide.” What is that you ask? Well, it’s the never-ending saga between the north end of Town and the south. Who are the characters this time? A group of north end parents of Chapel Hill Elementary School. Angered because a field trip got scaled back, they took to social media to blame the “demographics” and “all those bussed in children” from other areas of Stratford. What other areas you ask? Why, the south end, of course. Stop bussing your kids up to our schools. They are poorly behaved and troublemakers. Our kids are angels (yeah, right). And who, pray tell, is on the Board of Education living up there in them hills? Why, it’s Jim Feehan. At a recent BOE meeting, he replied to a speaker about where he grew up, yadda, yadda, yadda. But, the reality is, he’s forgotten his roots. As soon as he took to living deep in the woods of Stratford, he didn’t look back. God forbid! Should the Chapel kids have their trip? Absolutely. But what some parents did was to put their “true colors” out their with the mention of demographics, bussing, and those other kids. Not very nice and it’s poor examples they are teaching their own children. Tolerance, acceptance are words that don’t seem to exist in their vocabularies. It is still a very sad world we live in, I guess.
Solution: let’s just put the entire North End up for sale, maybe Shelton will buy it! Buh-bye!
