Select Board meeting tonight

Our Select Board will hear from our state rep, John Quinn, tonight on the legislative progress of the FY09 budget and presumably what that holds for the town. I don't expect that we have much help from that quarter as the state is pretty much broke too.
The Select Board will address the town about the now adopted override questions for the first time in open public meeting. I'm sure we will hear a lot about receivership and the Dartmouth we all know and love being gone forever if we don't vote for the whole package. I'd like to see a concise presentation of how much money is going to whom and why. Not likely, in my opinion. Easier to use scare tactics and appeals to emotion. It's not that I don't think the town needs an override, we do. Just tell the truth to the people and tell them exactly what they are getting for their money. I think the questions would have a better chance if they hadn't added $300,000 for new hires to the $1.5 million general government question, if they had included all the money that the police need in one question, and trimmed the school question. Just my opinion but others I have talked with agree. Look at the poll results on this blog as well. I would like to see a rational, dollars and cents, here is what we will lose, here is what we will keep, and here is what it costs presentation but I'm not going to hold my breath. A frequent comment is that the people don't think the town has made any progress in trimming costs. I agree and it is my observation that the department heads have not even been charged with preparing a budget the reflects the reduced funding available. No surprise that they haven't found ways to do things differently if they are not asked to.
The CFRG's Barry Walker is also on the agenda regarding personal contracts, that could be interesting!