Monday, October 15, 2007

Derry's 2007 tax rate set!

Well we have some good news to report. The Towns 2007 tax rate has been set by the state of New Hampshire's DRA (dept of revenue administration) and it's LOWER than the previous years! Last year the rate was $22.15 and this year it will be $22.05. 11 cents less/per 1000 of assessed value on our homes.

I know, Once you do the math you realise that it does not add up to "tons of money" however just the facts that we see the words lower taxes and Derry together is something we are not use to.

Some of the contributing factors are:

1) The town did not spend up to the allowed amount that is determined by the town side tax cap. The town council choose to leave .10cents which could of been used, back in the hands of the taxpayers. Not bad considering that we ( town side) is mostly personal costs and have increases in salaries, heath care costs and retirement funds that increase on a yearly basis.
It will be $7.64 and last year was $7.50. ( an increase of 1.9%)

2) The school rate went down .24 cents to 11.08 from 11.32. The reduction was due to the application of additional funds of 2.5 million to actually reduce that rate. Bonds from capital projects were closed out, lower enrollments and lower special ed costs at PA. higher budget interest and rental income and the work of school board to make cuts.

3) The state Ed tax actually went up 3 cents from 2.41 to 2.44

4) County Rate went down 4 cents to .89 from .93.

So, even though it is not a huge difference than last years, WE are going in the right direction!!

38 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just a quick question... will the cost of our taxes actually go up, despite the lower rate, beacause the properties are assessed at a higher value? I know it is on an individual basis, but are we seeing this throughout most of the town? Are property values decreasing?

BC said...

Anonymous 3:21,
Good question! The overall valuation for the town is $2,979,467,632 and last year was $2,951,488,988 which is a 0.9% increase in overall value. However, If you go to the assessed value on your home that the town has done 2006. The rate applies to that particular number. ie... Town assess property x for 200,000. Last year at a rate of 22.15 my tax bill would be 4430. Now the new rate is $22.05 and it gets multiplied by the assessed value. 22.05 x 200=4410. A small savings but a savings none the less. Please also keep in mind that the town will re-imbusre the differnce from APril-June (because they estimate based on previous year tax rate ) and so that saving gets applied as well. SO, taxes will reflex downward for the most part.

Anonymous said...

Hi BC,

Another question from a different annonymous...what impact will settling the union contracts have on the budget and/or tax rate?

I guess I'm assuming that there will be some sort of pay increases involved and I vaguely recall that it was budgeted flat...I could be wrong about that?

BC said...

anon 5:06,
another great question! We have not settled any other contracts yet so I'm not sure what kind of effect it may bring. Keep in mind though, we have money budgeted for increases from previous year. Lets see how things progress from here. I cannot speak about any dealings with the 6 other unions to this point.

Anonymous said...

I'd be quite interested to hear Mr. Newell's opinion on the 1.9% increase on the town side as he continues to his attempts to stifle progress and maintain an unsuccesful and unproductive status quo in our town.

Even more importantly to our tax bills, the cuts achieved on the school side (amazingly, without Mr. Newell winning the position he sought).

In an era of near double digit increases in most of our regular bills, the people volunteering their time to try to hold the line and maintain a decent quality of life here in Derry, deserve a world of credit.

Kudos to our ELECTED school board as well as our ELECTED town councilors.

The people of Derry spoke their mind in March, and contrary to what the "good old boys" of Mr. Newell's crowd pushed for, the people of Derry have stunned the gloom-and-doomers once again by making the right decision.

With any luck, the voters will continue their good judgement in the next town elections and keep Derry moving forward towards being a potential centerpiece of southern New Hampshire rather than what some would have us become. "Same as it ever was".

Anonymous said...

Mr. Burtis is physically tailing (?!) Mr. Steinhouse because he was late in fulfilling a 91A request (wink, wink - that's REALLY the reason Mr. Burtis gave!!) - a request that Mr. Burtis submitted on behalf of Kevin Coyle?!

Have these people no shame?

My suggestions to Mr. Steinhouse:

1. Get a restraining order against Mr. Burtis for stalking him.

2. Publish, within the administrators report segment of the Council Meeting, a summarized listing of ALL 91A requests, who requested them and the appr. man-hours it took to fulfill them.

3. Get a good lawyer who specializes in employment law. I'm sure that there a couple of recent ex-admin's that will testify for your case.

And then there's Brent -"I don't recall..." -Carney who recently wrote "It doesn’t help our community, it doesn’t help the political discourse, and it certainly doesn’t help to attract new businesses to our town."

HE OBVIOUSLY WASN'T SPEAKING OF HIS PARTICIPATION IN PUBLIC SHOWBOATING OF PERSONNEL MATTERS - now that they lost Courtney
they have to get more creative.

Clearly, when a politician like Carney says "I don't recall..." it raises a red flag.

WAY TO GO BRENT, KEVIN'S PROUD OF YOUR PUBLIC FLAUNTING OF THE MATTER!

PS: I do agree that Mr. Steinhouse should resign the Police Commissions post.

Anonymous said...

this is more desperate than when the joker, the penguin, the riddler and catwoman teamed up against batman! what we now have in derry is tony soprano pairing up with karl rove! (i’m sure you can guess who i’m talking about).

Anonymous said...

anon 7:47....lol...who is it that you are talking about? please give us with another clue, really, i can't figure it out. thanks.

Anonymous said...

I tend to agreet hat Mr. Steinhouse should get a restraining order against Burtis. Did he really admit on the record that he showed up in Rochester to see if Mr. Steinhouse was there? Well, we all know the answer is yes. That seems a little creepy to me. What's next, is he going to follow him home from work every night and make sure he comes in the next morning.

I agree that Mr. Steinhouse should resign from his elected postion in order to comply with the Charter. However, shame on the Town Council for not seeing that this be taken care of prior to his start of employment. (I'm very surprised Coyle and Fairbanks missed this one for so long.) It was very unprofessional of Coyle/Fairbanks/Carney to argue in public about something that is a personnel matter. What are the consequences for thier actions?

I'd like to hear from Janet why she voted against the Patrolman's contract. Did she and Coyle forget to synchronize their vote before the meeting?

Anonymous said...

After the the Coyle via Burtis very public assault on the Administrator, Carney incredible says "we're not being confontational..."

Carney is not stupid on how these things SHOULD be handled...he played a politically purposeful and key role in Derry's latest embarrassment.

I agree with the previous post on this level; the Administrator was wrong and neeeded direction, BUT IT WAS A PERSONNEL MATTER AND SHOULD HAVE BEEN HANDLED IN NON-PUBLIC. It was deliberately done in public.

PS: I can't help but be stunned by a previously posted observation...MR. BURTIS IS PHYSICALLY FOLLOWING HIS POLITICAL ADVERSARIES.

Anonymous said...

Wasn't it also toooo convenient that Al Dimmock was right there to "yield" his time in this little operetta.

Is there any provision in the Council Rules that allows that?

Anonymous said...

I can see by the last two comments that what we saw at the last town council meeting you find humerous. How sad to have this mentality. Once again Derry makes the newspapers in a negative light. Mr. Stenhouse, the "what you see is what you get"guy certainly showed his true colors. In all my years of watching these meetings I have never seen such unprofessionalism by a T.A.as I saw 10/16. As an outsider looking in, Mr. Stenhouse was on the attact.He never did resolve/address the 91A question.I am concerned how he conducts himself on a day to day basis when representing Derry. Was he the 'right' candidate? I think not.

Anonymous said...

I have to assume that anonymous 7:29 thinks the "right candidate" would be someone who will respond to the routine Coyle/Fairbanks and now, sad to say, Brent Carney type antics with "Thank you, may I have another".

If that's the most unprofessional thing you've seen at a council meeting, you must be watching different meetings than I am.

I find it refreshing to have an administrator that sees the damage these fiasco's are doing to our town and doesn't sit there and watch it happen.

As to the police commissioner's job, if Coyle/Fairbanks/Carney had an issue with it they should have resolved it prior to hiring him. That is THEIR responsibility as part of the hiring process. We know that they raised plenty of other issues prior to his employment, if that one slipped by then they dropped the ball, plain and simple. Take some responsibility for a change.

One point of clarification as well. Councilor Coyle while "not being confrontational" claimed that Mr. Stenhouse's contract was approved 5-2 vote. Trying to play to his minions that he opposed his hiring along with Fairbanks. However, the following is directly from the TC minutes of 6/19:

07-59 Approval of Town Administrators Contract

Motion by Councilor Chirichiello; Approve the Town Administrators Contract for Gary Stenhouse to begin on July 9, 2007. Seconded by Councilor Ferrante. Vote: 6-1-0 (Fairbanks, stated she does not agree with a part of the contract).

Yet another case of revisionist history/selective memory.

This whole thing could have been avoided and handled in the non-public session before the meeting even started. Are we supposed to believe that none of the councilors knew about this issue before Mr. Burtis stepped to the microphone? PLEASE!

Right down to Burtis waiting for Mr. Dimmock to "yield" his time, as was clearly previously agreed to, this was a perfectly staged event that the players hope will serve as a first act in the removal of Mr. Stenhouse.

Mark my words, if Stenhouse gets forced out, we won't be able to give the TA job away as long as Coyle/Fairbanks/Carney sit on the council.

Shame on the public if they allow that to happen.

Anonymous said...

Brent Carney clearly does not consider public flogging re: personnel matters as confrontational.

Unprofessional.

Anonymous said...

alright i just watched this circus today. from what i am reading people feel it is more or less a 3 ring one. where are the other councilors, should they not be helb accountable? now i do not believe it should have played ouy this way, but come on this man has been on board for how long? He knows that he should not hold any other public office, so for him to sit there and seem surprised that someone found out, is shocking in itself. maybe i am in the wrong proffession, could we find out how many days off Mr. Steinhouse has had in his few months of employment? Mr. TA lets start paying attention to the people of DERRY, the ones that pay your salary. Get your job done wheter you have 1 day or 4 weeks. lets pretend you work for the private sector.
Mr. Burtis should really get a life. Stalking and ochestrating a well rehersed play.
time will only tell why he went thru all this trouble for his 91A, i cannot wait to find out!!!
Just a question..what are the rule exactly for these 91a's and are you able to change them??? If in fact they are consuming so much time. Maybe Mr. Burtis can volunteer his time to research public inquiries so that it doesn't consume employee time, if anything just to punish him for asking so much of his town..

Anonymous said...

BC,it is simply astonishing with this latest headline spawning embarressment to our community, this time involving our new town administrator Mr. Gary Stenhouse, that the numerous politically motivated authors found here, still don't realize how feeble their cry's and hollow their accusations sound to those with no political axe to grind. Their political antics and attempts at lucidity would actually be kind of funny, if there was nothing at stake. But there is quite a bit at stake.

Would someone close to one of these "operators"... or better yet.. direct from one of these horses..ahh..mouths, explain whether they think their obvious politically motivated attacks on certian councilors, with the same long in the tooth characterizations, really advance their incompetent, failed agendas?

Below is a summary of the facts for your consideration:

At the 10.16.07 council meeting a Derry resident, Mr John Burtis clearly and throughly articulated the FACTS surrounding the non- fulfillment of a statutorily mandated response time resulting from a 91a request for documentation submitted to town administrator Mr Stenhouse. In addition to the above concern, Mr Burtis outlined what in FACT turned out to be a bona fide violation of our town charter, i.e. the FACT that Mr Stenhouse was concurrently seated as Derry town administrator and seated on the Rochester NH police commission.

Upon completion of Mr Burtis's presentation the council chair asked for questions from the council...after a long delay, as usual, the councilors that do not shy away from their offices responsibility's due to political restraints and/or intellectual limitations, represented their constituants by picking up the ball and commencing a logical line of pertinent questioning, to which our new town administrator, Mr Gary Stenhouse, quite frankly completely lost his composure and in so doing much credibility and benefit of the doubt.

In conclusion, honest observers know Mr Burtis has an established record of thoroughly researching and presenting his facts, yet, he is often ridiculed for this by the same compromised individuals whose opposing "opinions" are often supported only by their imaginations and fabrication.

In much the same manner, there are now seated some councilors that are attacked in a similar fashion again with no FACTS to back them up. Despite this dishonesty they persevere in their efforts to do their job. We as a community can be proud for both their energy and the FACT that they have "raised the minimum performance and expectation bar" in terms of experience, competency and results from those that serve in this capacity than what Derry had become accustomed to.

More power to them and any citizen like Mr. Burtis. These folks are the true movers and shakers that will move Derry forward for all our benefit, as opposed to the threatened posers and fakers that resent and attack the good ideas and standards these people are succeeding in instilling in Derry's previously sloppy approach to town government.

Anonymous said...

Anon 2:42,
You state that Mr Burtis and "these folks" will move derry forward...

What exactly have "these folks" proposed that will benefit the town? Yes, Mr. Burtis made a valid point at the last meeting... but what has he presented to the Council to better the community as a whole?

Anonymous said...

To Annon 1:22:

Would it even slightly alter your opinion IF Mr. Steinhouses instant reaction was accurate - what if he acknowledged his public service in another town and his intentions to let it run out in January during the interview process and Brent Carney is lying or is really forgetful?

For me, that means that while Mr. Steinhouse should still resign his position in Rochester, my finger points at Mr. Carney and the rest of the Council for allowing a breach of the charter. For me that means someone other than the Admin is incompetent or a liar.

Also, don't hold your breathe on finding out about Burtis' latest 91A request submitted on behalf of Kevin Coyle. He's put in dozens of them in the past --- have you ever heard about any of them?????!!!!!! Until someone or a local paper requests a 91A on ALL of the 91A requests we the people will never know what's realy going on.

To Annon 2:42 (AKA John Burtis),

Your little show wasn't pulled off very well; people are much smarter than you understand.

Anonymous said...

Here's how I see it. Mr.Stenhouse states that he did not read the the Charter and not 45 seconds later he states that he had read the Charter. The way I see it...the man lies. Either he didn't read it and said he did or he did read it and said he didn't. In addition, when the council and Mr. Stenhouse came out of their non-public session, instead of apologizing he states that he will resign from his Rochester responsibilities and is arrogant enough to state "I only have one meeting left anyway, so it's not a big deal".

Instead of being angry at Councilor Fairbanks and Councilor Coyle, you defend the actions and unstable behavior of Mr. Stenhouse. Did Mr. Burtis lie or yell. No, he spoke an uncomfortable truth. If Councilor Fairbanks or Councilor Coyle were to do something "wrong" I would bet people would be all over them. No, Councilor Fairbanks and Councilor Coyle have always been above board preforming their duty. They were not the one's that knowingly chose to withold this disturbing information or make Mr.Stenhouse stop following the rules set by our charter, yet you continue to use a blog to attack the hard work of the 2 council members who did not vote for Mr. Stenhouse. It seems that they are the ones who did not vote with the majority and the ones who voted correctly. Stop defending Mr. Stenhouse and his ranting tirades. My friends in Rochester are home laughing as their former problem is now ours.

Anonymous said...

Anon 4:11
According to the minutes, only one Councilor voted in opposition to Mr Steinhouse.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous (7:29am)
I stated earlier "I have never seen such unprofessionalism by a T.A."as I saw 10/16. Yes we have seen councilors and sometimes citizens have meltdowns, but NOT a Town Administrator.You have to earn respect and by his actions on 10/16 it's going to take him some time to gain that back. I agree with the previous comments....Rochester's former problem is now ours. I am in no ones 'camp', and am not looking for a 'yes' man for the job. I certainly did expect a person of higher standards and one with more people skills than what Mr. Stenhouse has displayed.

Anonymous said...

Anon 3:29 It is a very good question you ask. How about Mr Burtis serving as the chairman of the land advisory committee? Or perhaps his sitting for a time on the planning board? If that does not satisfy your need for an answer, how about his valuable suggestions regarding a disaster plan? And of course there is his most important contribution of all, that far to few exercise, which is his active citizen role that encourages adherence to the law and rules of order when officials elected or otherwise attempt to conduct "business as usual" like the good ole days ....I am certian there are more examples that I have read about in the papers but I hope this answers your question.
It is great that you appear open minded enough to inquire and I hope you keep it in mind the next time some of our towns ample supply of jokers launch into one distortion of facts or another.
As for the council members, even my pet dog can see that the depth of council debate is vastly superior due to "these folks" preventing our council from shooting themselves in the foot as often.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous 4:11,

You have already been duped by Mr. Coyle himself. As stated in a previous post, and contrary to Mr. Coyles assertions, the minutes of the council meeting on June 19, clearly show that councilor Fairbanks was the LONE dissenter in a 6-1 vote. Look up the minutes yourself on the town website. Coyle ultimately voted FOR approval of the Stenhouse contract!

The council has clearly agreed to give Mr. Stenhouse a year to fulfill the residency requirement in the charter. Such things are commonplace in these types of contracts. Is it outside the realm of possibility that something similar was done in the case of his police commission term?

Further, Mr. Stenhouse has asserted that he informed the council of his Rochester position and the council failed to act on it. Outside of Mr. Carney's "I don't recall" speil, no one, including Coyle and Fairbanks, has disputed that. Why? Either A) They knew all along and are simply playing for the cameras or B) They failed to do their due diligence in the hiring process, which would call into question their competency to hire a replacement, or C) They were simply waiting for a meeting with a light agenda and minimal public turnout, coincidentally while councilor Metts is away, to begin a campaign to either remove Mr. Stenhouse or force his resignation out of utter disgust.

Also, if councilors Coyle, Fairbanks, or Carney were to be clandestinely followed around as Mr. Burtis has obviously done with Mr. Stenhouse, I suspect there would be some activities that they would prefer not be shared with the public.

If I were them, I'd be looking over my shoulder and praying that most people would not stoop to the level of Mr. Burtis. But you never know!

Anonymous said...

Anon 3:45, go stand outside for a while and listen really carefully..
...if you hear laughing it is me, laughing at your hair brained conclusion that my post was written by Mr. Burtis.
I assure you, I am not he. But thanks much for the laugh.

Anonymous said...

let us not forget that coyle, fairbanks and carney are the ones responsible for the very poor interest in the administrators job --- fact is they ran the last two out of town.

cant help but notice that carney sure has turned into a heat seeking missle as far as headline grabbing is concerned. he seems to be relishing his printed word when it comes to opposing steinhouse positions on issues. good for the town? - nope.

Anonymous said...

RE: Burtis

Land Advisory ?
Was their report adopted?

Planning Board?
All 3 weeks tenure?

Disaster plan?
Show me more than 3 people in town that knows what it is?

Defending law and order?
like stalking people who you disagfree with?

Anonymous said...

Annon 7:55,

If I take your advice and go stand outside, is Mr. Burtis out there watching my house?

Anonymous said...

ANON 7:43
First of all I said nothing about Carney. If you knew your facts you would not put him in the same category as Fairbanksanks and Coyle. Carney was in strong favor of Stenhouse from the beginning. I'm not quite sure why Stenhouse went after him the other night.
It seems that Mr. Burtis hit a little too close to home.

Secondly, Coyle voted intially against Stenhouse, but once it was a done deal he voted in favor of his contract. On that point you are correct.

As for "playing for the camera", who are you or I to say what people knew or didn't know. I do know what I saw. I saw a man that my taxes are paying for, lose it, big time! How does the saying go..."He doth protest too much".

As for not moving to town, Carney agreed that that was in his contract. What do you bet he doesn't even stay long enough to move to town (taxes are too high.) I say he leaves just before that one year mark, takes his hefty severance pay, and buys himself a second boat. But, instead of naming it "Severance" (he already has one with that name), he names it "Severance 2".

Anonymous said...

Anonymous 7:29,

Do you so quickly forget our previous administrator, Dr. Moody's, threat to resign due to a similar situation of councilor Coyle questioning his integrity? These folks really bring out the best in people, don't they?

It's interesting to note that the issue that led Coyle to attack Moody was the ambulance contracts. Coyle now wants to introduce an ordinance giving the council oversight of such contracts. That's what he should have done in the first place instead of attacking Moody. Another case where Coyle dropped the ball and tried to blame others for HIS mistake.

And anoymous 7:41's defense of Mr. Burtis is almost laughable. The work of the Land Advisory Committee never saw the light of day, or the scrutiny of the public.
His breif time on the planning board followed by a swift and mysterious resignation call into question his motivations in seeking the position and his dedication to seeing things through.

And our we really to believe his scathing letter to Russ Marcoux in his last days as administrator, critisizing him for not personally bringing out warm milk and blankets to every resident who was ill prepared for a typical New Hampshire storm, played any productive role in emergency planning.

His letter sounded like more of that nanny-state nonsense that keeps getting imported from places like his native southern California.

Anonymous said...

this blog sure prevents a revision of history.

Anonymous said...

Anon 8:36 & 8:38...not surprisingly, when presented with facts that counter your claims about Burtis, you are not capable of defending your position with any degree of persuasion.

nope, you appear more comfortable discounting and denigrating Burtis and others that are not satisfied with the same old, same old for derry, as our lunch is being eatin' by surrounding community's.

oh well....thanks anyways for your unconsidered undeveloped responses. sure makes my job easier when folks like you actually make my arguement for me through your attempt at rebuttal better than i ever could.

ps: don't get your knickers in a bunch about my usage of the word "job." it is used only in the context of a citizen expressing an opinion, it's not really my "job".

Anonymous said...

hey bc.... start a thread asking for peoples opinions about economic development on the eve of the dedc-jack dowd-50 mile radius-maybe someone from town- dog and pony show?

Anonymous said...

As memory serves, Mr. Burtus did not say he followed Mr. Stenhouse. From what I remember he said that he made some calls and was told that Mr. Stenhouse was a memebr of the Rochester police commission, went to a police commission hearing, and stayed long enough to conform Mr. Stenhouse was a commissioner. This isn't stalking.

Now about the Town Adminsitrator and Council's behavior.

1. Stenhouse did say that he read the charter and didn't read the charter. It defies credibility that he has not read the town charter. I beleive he read the charter and thought (either with or without Town Council buy-in) that it would be ok if he served out the remainder of his term on the police commission. It was his responsibility to resign from the police commission and follow the town charter.

2. The Town Council doesn't get a free pass here either. Either they knew the Town Administator was on the police commission and remained silent because his term would expire in Jan 08 or 2) they did not perform their due diligence to make sure he resigned from the police commission. I can not believe that the hiring process/background investigation did not reveal he was on the Rochester Police Commission. If the town council did not ask if he intended to resign and followed up to ensure he did resign - them shame on the town council.

I can not absolve anyone of responsibility in this case. Mr. Stenhouse violated the charter, and the council did not ensure the charter was adhered to.

Finally, Although Mr. Burtis was "over the top" with his presentation, he did not stalk the Town Adminstrator and was responsible for bringing the charter violation to the attention of the Town Council and citizens of Derry.

Anonymous said...

"Leadership does not always wear the harness of compromise."
Woodrow Wilson


it appears there are many that would like their TC to cave under constant scrutiny,and pressure kudos to you that have not!!!!

Anonymous said...

The more and more I think about it, the more I wonder why Burtis would drive all the way to Rochester just to see if Steinhouse was there, or not. I would think his initial call to the Rochester PD would be good enough.

Although I continue to find this odd, it is not a crime and is not stalking, yet.

http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/RSA/html/LXII/633/633-3-a.htm

Mr. Burtis may not want to continue to follow people around and admit to it publicly.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous 10:01,

I have to admit I'm amazed and very much encouraged to read such an objective post on this blog. Most come from one side of the fence or the other, which is not necessarily a bad thing in that views/opinions are being exchanged. And perhaps, just maybe, a little learning on both sides. One can hope.

I will question one piece of logic regarding Mr. Burtis.

If in fact the council did know about Mr. Stenhouse's position on the police commission, then certain council members feigning surprise or claiming "I don't recall" would have been all a charade that they asked Mr. Burtis to play a part in. Therefore Mr. Burtis revealed nothing.

If none of them knew, then they all dropped the ball. There are not a lot of charter requirements for a town administrator. It would not take much time in the interview process to explore all of them.

If Mr. Stenhouse had an agreement, implied or otherwise, with the council as he did with his residency requirement, then there is no fault on his part

If Mr. Stenhouse lied, he should be removed. Period.

If, however, certain councilors were to be shown to have conspired amongst themselves and/or Mr. Burtis, a similar fate should await them as well.

The proof is likely in non-public minutes during Mr. Stenhouse's hiring process. But I doubt we'll ever see them.

Anonymous said...

If we were to take Mr. Burtis out of the equation and put 'Joe Public' as the one who made the 91A request and it was handled in the same untimely and unprofessional fashion (given the same time line that was stated the 16th) how would we be looking at Mr. Stenhouse then? Just how effective has he really been in these past 3 months? Any takers on that question?

Anonymous said...

For me, if it were Joe Public it still would have been transparent that it was a staged political event.

The tipping point for me was Mr. Dimmock's obviously rehearsed role and line. It leads me to believe that others also had prior knowledge.

And as I see it there's no doubt that Mr. Stenhouse had no prior knowledge of what was planned that evening and that gives more credibility to his non-rehearsed reaction - that he likely did disclose the matter during the interview process.

Are we really to believe that Mr. Burtis went to all this trouble - all that research, confirming Mr. Stenhouse's whereabouts by driving to Rochester, speaking at the council meeting, writing his expected letter...are really to beleive all that stems from a late fulfilment of a 91A request?

Or does anyone really beleive that Mr. Burtis is some sort of self appointed truth police? Seriously.

(Countless examples: Where was truth patrolman Burtis when Coyle and Fairbanks violated the Town Council Rules by meeting with the Police Union President during conract negociations? ETC, ETC ETC

And yes, I'm in the boat with those who think that drving to Rochester to confirm the wherabouts of our town administrator is a bit spooky.

Just what is that info that Burtis & Coyle are so hot for in that 91A request?