Solutions are needed in our Town and we need them right away. Economic Development has come to a grinding halt and we can't be happy with our results in the last two years. I feel that we did not get what we should of when we hired an in house director and it was a costly mistake. Also, we are looking at people who just don't want to give any money to the DEDC to help in this arena, and in the end, the people of Derry are "missing the boat".
Derry once had the medical field niche with Parkland Medical and the doctors who associated with them and that was something Derry could be proud of, however while the powers that be argue about $20,000 to bring business into this town ( a very small amount and one which we are way out spent) Londonderry is now attacking this very niche with Elliot moving in and making their business friendly environment pay-off. Derry will again, come out on the short end of the stick and if we don't turn it around soon, will NEVER recover from higher taxes.
The issue and the question is simple: What does Derry offer for businesses and how can we use our positive attributes to attract business and help lower taxes in our town.
Lets hear some thoughts.
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43 comments:
The question is whether bringing in a bunch of businesses is really the solution to Derry's troubles.
With our Cooperative School District and Private Pinkerton - is more business really going to make the difference? Especially if we give them all sorts of tax breaks and incentives to come to town. Has our Tax Assessor, the DTA or anyone else done any kind of analysis that is available on this subject?
Someone asked in an earlier post for the town to do review of the assessments on all current businesses in town - particularly the big apartment complexes. Has this been ordered by the Town Council or TA? Perhaps part of the solution is right there.
BC, give us a break. Shall we dig into past posts of yours where big box stores were Nirvana for our "blue collar" town? Now you have discovered the medical niche.
As for the $20,000 to the DEDC, please don't try to tell us that that will have anything to do with business development. It is a (temporary) bailout for a failed real estate investment, nothing more. Why don't you folks drop the pretense and just write town checks to all you buddies? You have the votes.
Unfortunately, the only medical niche the DEDC is capable of attracting is a group of proctologists.
BC- I take it you are not going to wait for DEDC to tell us what they would be doing with the $20K. Your mind is made up. We won't confuse you with facts. 4-3 DEDC gets the money and makes their July mortgage payment. In the mean time they need to get in the new budget so that they can make the mortgage payments later in the year. I'm not sure I'll be making mine but then again I don't have friends like you and the boys.
londonderry has recently issued a rfp for professional firms to bid on providing economic development marketing services for the town.
IMAGINE THAT!
to the best of my knowledge, up to this point, londonderry has not had anyone or organization serve exclusively in this capacity .
this approach is one that i personally have advocated in the past but it fell upon deaf and/or self interested ears. no surprise there.
lets see if this time around the council pay's closer attention to the independent outside consultant option rather than respond with the same old line that has led us to where we are when asked to think outside the box, "well that's the way we've always done it in derry."
here's the link for those that need to be brought up to speed :
http://www.londonderrynh.org/marketing%20services%20rfp%201%207%2009.pdf
You want solutions? You can't handle solutions. ;-)
When I ran for Town Council, or even when I ran for State Rep, I had several ideas.
Perhaps some of those ideas should be revisited. Like the bike path reaching route 102, and at that point have the Farmer's Market. I actually like the Quincy Market model, and license Derry residents to sell their fresh eggs, flowers, hand made crafts etc.
I have also noticed my idea of having schools grow their own food is now taking off. We could have been one of the first.
I also suggested using the Derry website to make money ...
I suggested having one Library or even consolidating with Londonderry and have both towns share one library.
Researching what high tech companies need, then seeing if we can provide it is another idea.
I have plenty of ideas. How are our new Councilors doing? Where are their ideas? Where is their leadership?
Nick
Another idea I ran on, for State Rep., was for wind turbines to be placed along route 93.
Again, we could have been a leader ... instead MA is taking the lead.
http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/green/articles/2009/04/28/wind_turbine_set_for_turnpike/
"The area gets enough wind to accommodate a 1.5 megawatt turbine, according to officials. A turbine of that size could produce enough electricity to power roughly 400 households."
All of these ideas were listed on my website. I also had those ideas posted in the letters to the editor section of the Derry News.
Still no one acted on one of them.
It seems, even if good ideas exist, with out leaders to act on them, they never go anywhere.
Conservatism has its drawback.
Nick
TIME OUT!
I haven't commented in a long time, but the negative comments and personal attacks seem to be escalating. I'm not sure what the solutions are to our problems, but I'm pretty sure we won't solve them by calling each other names or by ridiculing the ideas. We will solve them by working together as a team.
I don't think either the DEDC or the in-house development seems to be working. Before giving any more money to the DEDC, there should be a detailed analysis showing exactly how much money the town has given to the DEDC over the last 5 or 5 to 10 years and the resulting increase in tax revenues from the development (that DEDC is responsible for). The Council could use that information to make an educated decision and the voters could use that information to evaluate the DEDC and the Council. Maybe instead of giving money to the DEDC, the town council should consider loaning it to them?
Other ideas:
Economic Development Marketing - Kudos to whoever came up with this one. How can you attract anything, if no one knows what you can offer.
What can Derry offer? 1) Access to major transportation - Route 93 - Manchester Airport, 2) good schools, 3) access to excellent healthcare (access in-town, as well as close to Manchester and Boston), 4) no sales/income tax, 5) nice area to raise a family.
Derry offers a lot, I'm just not sure companies realize that.
Tom Seidell
Scobie Pond Road
I'm assuming this blog is inadvertently an ad for the DEDC to promote their funding. A few short blogs back you wrote about the State of Economic Development and got 93 responses. Do you think any of these responses are going to be different? For the DEDC to go in front of the council and ask for a 20K bailout for a property they own and then tout their own project as "economic development" is shameful. Is the 20k bailout money available to all businesses in Derry that are near collapse? Do we know how existing businesses are faring during this economic downturn? Are we doing anything to help retain the businesses we do have? Are we doing anything to fill the empty store fronts that current exist? For someone so concerned with economic development why would you vote to cut half the concerts in the park? I’m sure some of the attendees frequented our restaurants and businesses before attending. Does that not add to economic development? For someone so concerned with economic development why would you run your own mini campaign to take back monies going for the paving of the bike path? Does that not improve quality of life which goes hand in hand with economic development?
There’s one blog entry on your prior post that I agree with. They asked “Why does Derry want Economic Development? I understand the simplistic explanation that commercial and industrial developments generally pay more in taxes than they cost the towns in services but every study I came across showed that in towns that have the most commercial activity the tax rate is more likely to be higher rather than lower.” I took the time to Google around a bit and they’re right. I came across two studies; one out of NH and one out of Ma. Both concluded that commercial activity is more likely to increase taxes rather than decrease them. I’d think that economic development would be a boost to the local economy but it seems we couldn’t care less about that.
I think what you're looking for is substantiation to vote in favor of funding the DEDC; not suggestions (unless of course the suggestion is to fund the DEDC).
If it's suggestions you want then listen and keep an open mind at the Community Follow-up Profile Meeting. It’ll be interesting to see if the results of that fall into the same black hole where every other idea or plan ends up that isn’t inline with maintaining the status quo that Derry seems to be famous for. I believe about a year ago we threw $25k at a consulting firm to do yet another study of our main street. Black hole?
Times are changing. It no longer matters how good you are, how long you've been in town or your pedigree, citizens are fed up with those who fail to understand that the pursuit of the common good is paramount to the pursuit of personal gain.
For years I’ve seen members of the council behave like a little totalitarian state, manipulating the flow of information to its own members and the public in order to achieve some desired outcome. Normally I don't understand who starts or who benefits from these activities, but in the case of the DEDC I know who started it and who'll benefit from it and in both cases I know that it won't be Joe Public. I’m tired of it.
I got one lets hire a towing company to pull everybody's head out of there asses so we can stop playing the blame game.
We have beat this dead horse enough.
DEDC, Town Unions, The Council except Coyle and Fairbanks they do no wrong.
Time for something positive to help not keep all this shit going.
Nick, I think you are a nice guy but even the gang (word used precisely) that controls the council has a better touch with reality than you do.
We only have one or two farmers in town and Phil already has a market. Go there.
You want to start licensing people to raise a few eggs? Why?
You want to divert students from learning essential skills to teach them how to pull weeds in gardens? Are you preparing them to live in the Third World? We need them to be prepared to lead the First World. Also check the growing season and the school calendar… not a good fit.
Study economics and you might see why Quincy Market might have different results than a Derry Market.(hint: check the populations of Boston and Derry)
Study engineering and you might determine that you need consistent strong wind to make wind farms economical. Economical wind farm locations have already been mapped, I don't think we are on that map.
If you want to fight against gravity or the market forces please do it with your own resources not our taxpayer money.
Just because an idea is "out of the box" does not make it a good idea. Do a little research once in a while.
Tom Seidell - Great post. I agree with you. We need less throwing money at problems and more research and thorough planning to assure that our limited resources make the greatest impact.
First you need an agreed upon (development)goal.
Then you develop a marketing plan.To whom are you delivering what message. Then you structure incentives so that great sales people are unleashed on the challenge. Then you measure everything possible. "If it's not measured it's not managed." Finally based upon the measured results you make necessary changes to improve the process.
Doug Newell
Of course 12:54 you are right. This whole thread is just a commercial for the giving the $20k to their buddies. A fig leaf for BC to hide behind. Didn't the Derry News do an (unscientific) poll where people said 85% to 15% NO to more DEDC money? Anyone want to bet on the council vote? I'll take a 4-3 vote they get the money. BC, what do you think 100 voters chosen randomly would say?
Doug Newell
Brian,
I guess my question would be, how much did either the DEDC or the "In-house" Business Development coordinator have to do with the current development?
In particular, the Overlook Medical Park, CLM, Birch Heights, Planet Fitness, Tractor Supply, Hess, Rite Aid, etc... It would seem to me, a realtor could do as much to sell the Town of Derry as any of these people or organizations at no cost to the Derry Taxpayer - (I am not being sarcastic).
The fact of the matter is businesses use statistics to open in certain areas, and like it or not - Derry doesn't meet the qualifications for some of these businesses!
If it did, I suspect the vacant lots on Ashleigh Drive with Town utilities and working traffic lights would be a pretty booming area!
From 11:40 "The Council could use that information to make an educated decision and the voters could use that information to evaluate the DEDC and the Council."
Sorry but I burst out laughing when I read this. Has the council ever made an educated decision related to the DEDC? If so, please remind me when that happened!
Enough is enough. They haven't done a thing for this town and we need to stop wasting taxpayer money on this. Hopefully the council will do the right thing here, but I'm not holding my breath.
Solution # 1: make everyone who posts on here use their real name. It will keep things civil. No one can hide behind anonymity when they insult, misinform, or act childishly.
ANON 8:34
Great idea to post your name.......
Now, how about you start us off by doing as you say, not as you do?
Which town union do you belong to?
Wow...JB donated a print (1 out of the "rare" 1500 prints) to the library in exchange for a little Nutfield space. Whatever happened to giving a little something to the community without asking for recognition.
I guess I don't understand how everyone’s defining "economic development". In moving forward do we have a strategic plan of what we want Derry to be? Regardless of who the individual or organization I don't consider developing a project for financial gain and then moving on to the next biggest financial gain project as "economic development". I'm certainly not in a position to judge whether the Business Development Coordinator did or didn't do what was expected. I assume the position came with measurable goals and the person was eliminated because those goals weren't met. I also have to assume that before "hiring" any individual or organization those same measurable goals would be in place. Has the organization that you're speaking of, the DEDC; provided the community with an attainable plan for economic development with a buy in from all council members? Is the DEDC the only organization available to provide and execute an aggressive and comprehensive economic development plan? Maybe we should do some leapfrogging and take some pointers from our neighboring town Londonderry. As a mere citizen and taxpayer who wants to move forward I'd think that first we'd need to define what we want Derry to be. It seems due to the lack of economic development poor and costly decisions are being made just for the sake of economic development. Solutions are needed but it's long range planning that starts with a vision. As a citizen and taxpayer it certainly makes me a little nervous for a sitting councilor to make the statement "solutions are needed and we need them right away". Clearly that's only going to lead to more poor/costly decisions being made with little to no regard being placed on Derry as a community. Whether the incubator project on West Broadway goes forward or not it isn't going to make a bit of difference in the economic development arena. If you'd like to give the DEDC monies to go forward with their project then please call it what it is; a personal gift; but please don't insult us by calling it "Economic Development".
Londonderry’s Future
anon 8:54,
You said it right when you said all councilors need to "buy in" and there lies the problem. You don't have total buy in from the decision makers and therefore the process has grinded to a halt. Seems like people are quick to dismiss other ideas yet come to no solutions to move forward. Same stuff, different day.
4:10, I am 8:34. I guess you did not see the irony in my post. I will sign my name. Your turn?!
Mike Lonergan
B.C. -- What B.S.!!! You didn't need unanimity to squash the 2nd forum, you didn't need unanimity to pass outrageous union contracts and you don't need unanimity to move ahead on Economic Development. Don't hide behind that as an excuse for what has (not) been happening. You hired a poorly qualified person, set no measurable goals, failed to track her progress or even whereabouts and now you are shocked, shocked you say, that nothing has been accomplished other than providing someone with $100k+ of town money and a lifetime long-term disability check. You folks couldn't lead a Girl Scout troop. This is embarrassing.
BC - I know this is not an "open forum", but I would love to request that you to post a countdown clock on this site. The clock would stop on the last day of your service to the Town as a Councilor, and this blog would cease to exist.
This is not meant as a shot at you, but to recognize your first day back as John Q. Taxpayer!
The ADT would have to find new ways to promote their website, and agenda. It would be one less outlet for extremely STALE "Bloviations". And you could chime into other blogs as ANON 3:16 and spout off with the joy of anonymity!
Of course blog #1 might start "Why is B.C. trying to gag us by shutting down his blog"??? So tread cautiously!
I would like to know if DEDC ever got any of the $300+k that was embezzled from them.
If not then why should the town pony up a dime unless it wants to subsidize the embezzlement.
I am surprised the 6:11 post was approved with that kind of offensive language
WOW!! anon 8:15, now i know what an exterminator must feel like when he/she locates the vermon that has infested a house.
In this case however, we are not talking about a house but rather Brian's blog. And of course, we are not actually taliking about vermon, but we are talking about a bitter, angry soul in our midst who without regret chooses to use this public forum to disparage a gift that was presented to the town by a fellow resident Mr. John Burtis.
It sure does not take much thought to realize that this gift meant something to Mr.Burtis. It was reported that this print of a civil war soldier was the property of Mr. Burtis father, who as it turns out passed away only a few months ago .
I know this because I ran into Mr. Burtis this afternoon at a local gas station. Having seen the reports in the papers I wanted to offer him a neighborly thank you for his generosity. During our brief conversation, I also learned that JB's father was a WWII USN veteran. In fact, he was at the Normandy landing and then fought in the pacific theater.
As of this afternoon, I am hopeful (judging by John's good mood and just a hint of unselfish pride that he was able to extend this generosity to the community), that John had no knowledge of this pure act of cowardice willfully put on public display on Brian's blog, authored by anon 8:15.
Anon 8:15, what can anyone say about such a loathsome act? You have demonstrated only that nothing's beneath you and civility is above you.
Mr. Burtis certainly can take care of himself. But in this instance anon 8:15, I feel that I must address this matter directly, as I hope others of you might consider doing, in the hope that your brand of stupidity does not detract from what John has done or adversely influence what others may consider doing in the future.
Anon 8:15, if you have an issue with Mr. Burtis or anyone for that matter, that's fine. That's a right that millions of Americans have fought to preserve. Right or wrong, even cowardly anonymous imbeciles like yourself, have the right to display the depths of your character. In the future however, please confine your objections to whatever your specific issue may be with John or whomever it is that you are not capable of addressing directly.
For all our benefit, next time you feel the urge to spout off, consider carefully how your lack of character and judgement reflects upon the overall community of which you sadly are a part.
Yes folks, it appears we have vermon hiding in our midst. If by chance this character, anon 8:15, stuck a whisker or two out of his/her nest and boasted about the post, please express your displeasure to him/her and don't hold back.
Anon:15 I for one am reassured that even if john learns about this affront, your classless, cowardly post has done far more damage to you, than your intended victim and by extension all those millions that have fought for your benefit.
Carl V. Accardo
8:15 You are contemptible. While you sit at your computer spewing venom, John Burtis has been taking a leadership role in the town forums. He has used his knowledge of firefighting to pressure the DFD to change its false alarm policies. Those changes should save the town money. They will also improve public and firefighter safety. John has fought to make Derry’s government more transparent. Those who would do backroom deals have come to fear John. He has stood in defense of taxpayers against increasing the tax burden as hundreds of our neighbors face foreclosure. And now he has made a generous donation to the library.
I suspect that your problem with John is that it is obvious that he is smart and you know that you are not. Get over it. I wish I had John’s eloquence. I don’t, but I can live with that without attacking him. Try to rise to John’s level; don’t try to drag him down to yours.
Doug Newell
to the writer of the comment
posted on 4/30 at 8:15 PM
Where is your donation? At least John Burtis loves this town enough to make a donation. Through your sour grapes into the garbage can and get your wallet out like John Burtis did. Brian have to balls to post this and surprise me.
I for one am glad there is no longer a second forum at the meetings! There is nothing but a bunch of hot air from most of those who speak. I can't say as though I blame those of us who wish to remain anonymous, some of you would be blowing up our mailboxes if you knew who we really were!
Doug,
I respect your efforts and often agree with your point of view. However sicking up for John Burtis is dragging you down! Burtis is a blowhard. That he crafts his missives thesaurus in hand only underscores that he is in this only for self agrandisement.
Doug you are a bigger thinker than Burtis will ever be. Lay down with dogs.....
DJN: "8:15 You are contemptible. While you sit at your computer spewing venom, John Burtis has been taking a leadership role in the town forums."
ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Does the hypocrisy ever end? I will not defend the statements of Anon 8:15 however I can't help but question the retort above.
Mr. Burtis' leadership role in Town forums has been to berate a Town Council, often for longer than the three minutes alloted, and occasionally stir a 20 minute non-public session to disrupt and delay the meetings agenda. This is not limited to the non-agenda public forum, but each and every public hearing as well. He unapologetically attacks a public employee - a highly dedicated member of the community - for a mistake on programming where he was unable to watch himself. In the Derry News or Nutfield News, each Derry Taxpayer can learn of the big, bad "Gang of four" who are only out to hush the taxpayers. And Lastly of course, here on one of the gangmembers blogs another opportunity to sound off without being accused of spewing the same venom!
While I appreciate Mr. Burtis' contribution to the Library, I refuse to accept Mr. Newell's challenge to "rise to John's level" elsewhere.
Anon 6:09 I take issue with your contention that John Burtis, or for that matter many of our towns citizens "role" has been to berate the council should they choose to speak out if they perceive an issue.
Elements of the council have historically done quite a good job at that, all by themselves, through their own painfully obvious "go along, to get along" decision making process and/or inaction.
We are indeed fortunate to have citizens in town that actually pay attention to issues. These citizens at times are known to speak to them publically with good "down home, horse sense", if not expertly. From my perch, I am encouraged that increasingly citizens are unwilling to accept the "role" of passive observer any longer, the "role" many of our councilors most outwardly annoyed by this "outspoken" phenomenon had apparently become passively accustomed from it's citizens.
John Burtis and many others, have accepted a "role" alright, the role of "citizen" that cares about the future of our town.
What I see Derry in the process of moving towards is the election of a council whose members not only play their elected "role" as councilor due to political voting block support, but also a council that individually possess competence.
Politics can and often does deliver incompetence; Derry has certainly not been immune.
What we are witnessing from the likes of Mr. Burtis is what Mr. Newell correctly suggests is a community insistance upon a " rise to a new level" of competence by our council. Not just from Burtis, but by a majority of its citizens.
The collective adverse impacts and resulting competitive disadvantages unique to our town are in large measure a natural outgrowth of years of poor decision making and "seat of the pants" planning by "role playing politicians." These issues have grown to big to ignore.
Concerned citizens like Mr. Burtis realize this and simply are calling for a new council accountability which presupposes a minimal level of competence.
Is that really such a bad thing?
CVA
Now..now...children...behave.
"He has used his knowledge of firefighting to pressure the DFD to change its false alarm policies. Those changes should save the town money. They will also improve public and firefighter safety."
Wow. I guess if you can beleive THAT you could beleive anything. Mr. Burtis does not dictate DFD policy. Period. Changes to DFD policy come from extensive review of national and local trending. Policy review and changes are dictated by what is best for THIS community based on many factors. "The Burtis Factor" certainly is [b]NOT[/b] one of them.
Saying Mr. Burtis' "knowledge" of firefighting contributed anything to changes by ANY local dept is akin to saying that my "knowledge" of construction contributed to the completion of exit 4A...
12:17 Yea, sure. Burtis shining the public light and getting 91A information regarding false alarms had nothing to do with the DFD (after what 75 years?) deciding to review their false alarm policies.
Any I really think from your perspective 12:17 given that your buddies blew $1million of town money on a 4A study only to have the contractor come back recently and ask for another million, you might leave the 4A subject alone.
Last Tuesdays meeting gave Janet an opportunity to let her fangs out (not long after Dimock barked at the moon). Shrill, argumentative and dead wrong.
Oh! Janet, least capable in the battle of intellect; come out from under the bridge where you live and see that it WAS BECAUSE of the impending economic retraction that Wal-Mart would not give Derry the same deal they gave Salem. They have staffs of Macro and Micro economists that study all aspects of the economy and lobbyists galore in Washington to run their models before. You have a cauldron with eye of newt to “see” the future.
I will take pros over witchcraft every time. You gave Wal-Mart the out and they followed through with every other project in the area.
Nice call honey and Mr. Dowd hit a nerve. That your hackles went up and do every time it is mentioned gives away that there is a little voice in you that knows you screwed up. You just can’t come out in the daylight and admit that the “smart bus” left you at the curb.
Every town that gets a Wal-Mart going forward ( and all the tax revenue it represents for the area) will use your idiocy as a model of what not to do!
God can someone reason with this idiot and get her to step down?
Wow, the old blog is really heating up. And what times we live here in Derry.
Golly, I'm sure sorry that I donated my old man's Civil War print to as crazy a place as the public library. It was one of his favorite's. But when I came up with the idea, the library was doing a lot with President Lincoln and the Civil War. Jeez, I guess I should've run a poll on 03038.blogspot to see how it it would play with the proper folks in town. But in my doggone haste, I just forgot to check with the Better Derryites for the ok to better my town. Sorry y'all thought the donation was so cheap and cheesy. My old man would be so proud of a town he used to do a lot of business in.
Then, of course, there's that old bugaboo of "micro-managing", which states that any citizen of Derry, who has any knowledge of a certain system or operation at all, may never apply that knowledge to any series of actions of the town government, or any of its departments, where that particular personal training and study may actually be applied.
Yep, I was a firefighter in Broome County, NY. But you're all right. False alarms should never be kept track of and the guilty parties fined because, until Chief Klauber came up with the idea in Derry, we had only done it in Broome County years ago because we were worried about firefighter and citizen safety, and apparatus wear and tear. But when Chief Klauber comes up with this absolutely brilliant idea today in Derry its boffo and its all about his primary concern about additional revenue streams. But in the late 60's, when NY budgets were tight, those were just common sense things to do. And fire departments all over the country had been doing them, too. You know, NYC in the 50's, Derry in 2009. But today, its Klauber's genius at work. Of course, the papers I've sent him and the meetings I've had with him on this very subject have had no impact on this outcome at all, nor should they.
As for the jamokes at the DEDC? Who can say?
Take Jack Dowd. He hops the fence from the council to the DEDC to take the job he just voted to fund. Then signs papers on behalf of the town on the Ash Street project, a serious no-no. Jack then publicly calls the 2 million dollar loss on Ash Street a profit. Mr. Dowd has, after all, told me directly that, "The laws of economics don't apply to Derry." I guess they don't apply to Jack.
Being a political animal, Jack spends most of his time during the intervening elections putting up signs and glad handing for his pals, rather than phoning for businesses. And during this last town election, he spent most of his time following Mr. Coyle around taking Coyle's photos for some strange reason after accusing Coyle of taking honest write downs on a dilapidated home he was fixing up, something Jack's DEDC does all the time. Dowd even phoned the local papers about this all too obvious red herring, hoping for a bite, but this phony attack petered out.
And recently we saw Mr. Dowd rise and accuse the town council of not approving his most harebrained of schemes, like the downtown parking garage, to be built in the current recession - after Mr. C. W. Bulkley reminded us of the superb job the DEDC did on the Fire Hall Pub, where the DEDC is owed some $17,000in third place behind Wells Fargo of Santa Monica, which is owed about $750,000. Has anyone located Mrs. Hall?
But, as someone here has had another hissy fit over Ms. Fairbanks again for daring to take Mr. Jack Dowd to task over his wilder imputations, let's remind everyone that it was Mr. Dowd who helped coin that absolutely uproarious rumour that it was Ms. Fairbanks and Mr. Coyle who drove WalMart away due to their continuous transmission of "bad vibes, man, bad vibes" into the ionosphere and troposphere.
However MalMart's decision to di-di out of here was most likely based on our idiotic tax structure, the upcoming economic downturn, our shrinking demographics, the rising foreclosure rates, and the total lack of any real long term economic planning being done by the Derry town council.
Oh, and WalMart's post card caper? That signalled to anyone with business and retail sense that the whole shebang was over. All except to Mr Dowd and his cronies.
Sure'n Begorrah, and some folks wonder why I berate the council and their running dogs for all the good they've brought us and how they've lowered our taxes with all the honest spending of our hard earned monies over the years.
The solutions needed for this town are very simply these:
Hire a town manager who is young go-getter with no ties to NH, DRED, to the council majority, and someone who has attended an accdredited college of business and pay him for it.
Dump the current council majority and fill the council with folks who can think outside the box, who are beholden to no factions, who won't push the citizens around, and who will vote for the taxpayers and not for the feathering of particular nests, businesses, or engineering firms.
Hire outside development firms to work on a contingency rather than on a contractual basis.
Let the DEDC rise or fall by their own vast and highly touted managerial skills - send them no more of our own town money.
Do a complete managerial study of the DFD using a firm from outside NH as Stenhouse offered to do last November, but has utterly failed to do, as he has completely failed to follow through on any promise he's made, save keeping the boyos in power.
Examine outside ambulance firms, following a cost benefit analysis of the DFD's ambulance operations.
Examine going to Rockingham County with the DFD dispatch, since we are already paying Rockingham $89,000 a year as part of our county levy. Currently 49% of our incoming calls for service in the DFD dispatch come from outside Derry.
Get ahold of the DFD union contract. The idea that three DFD directors can write their own paychecks is ridiculous in this economic situation as well as at any time.
Lastly, put a limit on Derry vehicles. When I first looked at Derry vehicles, two years ago, there were 137. Now there are over 150. Why. Does the Fire Inspector really need a Derry SUV to go home in? Where are the limits? It's time to set some.
Bloviating Burtis,
I was not “negative waves” that drove Wal-Mart away. It was the inane contract that took the seven months with Coyle pulling the strings and Fairbanks playing the puppet on a string/attack dog.
Try the truth sometimes John. Sometimes your windbag has good ideas but you keep inserting your foot where the air comes out. It will make you feel so good to speak truthfully for a change. Nice work leaving the Rogets on the desk though. For many people this may be the first thing you wrote where they understood most of the words.
Dowd (who should restrict his political involvement in Derry to flipping burgers in Hooksett) was correct in his appraisal that we let our pitbull/troll cross breed loose to take our "fair share" of money from Wal-Mart. Problem was they just had no interest in putting up with such BS when there are plenty of opportunity in other places where the government has it’s collective stuff together. But since it was not being built in JANETS DISTRICT, some other town got the benefit of the construction. Sorry to note: Coyle and Janet have brought what to the tax rolls during their tenure?
As for your continuing support of Coyle, his performance Tuesday night was a clear indication of his political capabilities. “Mr. Chairman, I want to remind everyone that this council voted for Wal-Mart,” should win him the Governors chair someday and an academy award in the meantime.
The guy looked so innocent and sincere I almost believed him!
Kevin, for another brave member of society that takes his living from the taxpayer(just like you do BB) you certainly have the duplicity down cold!
Politically, it was a master stroke of saying one thing when you clearly did or mean another.
Are you running for Coyle’s driver or bag man John? Birds of a feather.
A standing ovation John. A standing ovation.
John Burtis,
You point out the negativity on this blog by insulting the fire chief. The kettle calling the pot black?
This DOWD guy is something else.
He opens a sub shop in another town.
Some interest in new businesses for Derry, heh!
I know, I know he bought a franchise and could not open it in Derry due to a pre-exisitng franchise in Derry.
What does this tell us about his character and who he really is?
(ans)He is all for himself and no one else.
Burtis:
You must be confused with another community.
The fire inspector does not take a vehicle home.
Once again, you start rumors and spread untruthful statements.
BC,
I have a question.Say now we need 3 cops directing trafic at the pocketbook heaven flemarket,for saftey sake so traffic can be stopped to go to metts clam haven.The officers charging say 60 to 75 dollars an hr. for sat and sun.Thats 16 hrs a Police cruser is running with lights flashing.
AH the question ,Does the town [TAXPAYERS} pay for this fuel to run these cars all weekend plus wear and tear or do the officers getting the big bucks?
I seem to remember a DFD blogger stating to the guy who won his case in court about a 50.00 charge he did not pay because he was already paying, that if you use the service pay up.Just want to know how the use of those crusers are payed by.Just asking.
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