Thursday’s edition of the Burlington Union once again illustrates that it isn’t worth the paper it is printed on.
It is not that the local coverage is about the size of a postage stamp or even that the editor’s have been to numerous to even remember the names of that make me cranky. It is simply how lazy the management of the paper has become and what little standards they seem to apply.
My case in point is a letter to the editor that is entitled “Mr. Entrenched”. The letter is a negative endorsement of Al Fay for re-election to the board of selectmen. Although I don’t profess to remember every campaign letter written over the years I can’t seem to recall any election in which letters were allowed that attacked an individual.
Not only is the letter filled with complete falsehoods regarding double dipping and insurance coverage but it is written by someone who is neither a registered voter nor apparently a current resident. If he doesn’t vote here or live here why does it matter what he thinks? Even a cursory examination of the writer would have brought up some rather dubious items of interest.
I do however agree that Mr. Fay is entrenched in the community. It could be because of nearly 60 years of living here or over 50 years of combined public service or more fundraising for good causes that I can even count. Fortunately, none of those things can be sullied.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Hire From Within
Tonight's Daily Times leads with a headline regarding a management request for an appropriation for recruiting money for the chief of police, fire chief and assessor. Why?
All that is necessary for the assessor's job is a couple of ads and we will be swamped with applicants for the job. The fire and police chiefs are another matter altogether. Yes, we took both jobs out of civil service last year but does that mean we are going to engage in the proverbial "nation wide search" for qualified applicants? If the answer is yes then my advice is save the money.
In the top public safety jobs, Burlington has never opened the position to outside applicants and as a resident I would offer a number of reasons why we shouldn't. Mostly those reasons revolve around loyalty and morale.
In both the fire department and the police department we have top command people who have been with us for decades. If they were no good as personnel then how on earth did we elevate them to positions of command?
What message do we send all along the command chain if we by pass people that we have had close proximity to in day to day operations of the departments and advertise for some person from the outside who we have no experience with and can only rely on recommendations from people we have no connection to?
That message is one of stagnation. When a top command position in a department opens up it results in a healthy competition for positions up and down the command chain. If you replace a chief with a captain then a captain is replaced with a lieutenant and a lieutenant is replaced with a sargent and a sargent is replaced with a patrolman. The same domino effect would take place in the fire department. If you choose fromn the outside, every position might be frozen for as much as a decade.
By hiring someone from the outside we are essentially saying to every person in both departments that we reject the idea that any of you are qualified to move up the chain of command. That is absolutely the wrong message.
In the police department, we have two captains who have served the community well for many years and they deserve a chance to move to the top spot. The same is true in the fire department. We are not some Podunk little community that needs Clint Eastwood to come in and show us how to run public safety. We have a large number of professionals trained within our own structure that know the community backward and forward and deserve a chance to move up in the command structure. This would not be some favorite son appointment but would be a healthy internal competition for advancement.
I see no reason to send any kind of message to our existing employees that management thinks they are not up to the task.
All that is necessary for the assessor's job is a couple of ads and we will be swamped with applicants for the job. The fire and police chiefs are another matter altogether. Yes, we took both jobs out of civil service last year but does that mean we are going to engage in the proverbial "nation wide search" for qualified applicants? If the answer is yes then my advice is save the money.
In the top public safety jobs, Burlington has never opened the position to outside applicants and as a resident I would offer a number of reasons why we shouldn't. Mostly those reasons revolve around loyalty and morale.
In both the fire department and the police department we have top command people who have been with us for decades. If they were no good as personnel then how on earth did we elevate them to positions of command?
What message do we send all along the command chain if we by pass people that we have had close proximity to in day to day operations of the departments and advertise for some person from the outside who we have no experience with and can only rely on recommendations from people we have no connection to?
That message is one of stagnation. When a top command position in a department opens up it results in a healthy competition for positions up and down the command chain. If you replace a chief with a captain then a captain is replaced with a lieutenant and a lieutenant is replaced with a sargent and a sargent is replaced with a patrolman. The same domino effect would take place in the fire department. If you choose fromn the outside, every position might be frozen for as much as a decade.
By hiring someone from the outside we are essentially saying to every person in both departments that we reject the idea that any of you are qualified to move up the chain of command. That is absolutely the wrong message.
In the police department, we have two captains who have served the community well for many years and they deserve a chance to move to the top spot. The same is true in the fire department. We are not some Podunk little community that needs Clint Eastwood to come in and show us how to run public safety. We have a large number of professionals trained within our own structure that know the community backward and forward and deserve a chance to move up in the command structure. This would not be some favorite son appointment but would be a healthy internal competition for advancement.
I see no reason to send any kind of message to our existing employees that management thinks they are not up to the task.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
The Bonus Kerfuffle
There is nothing congress likes more than an opportunity to grandstand. The AIG and other financial companies payment of bonuses is a perfect opportunity for members of congress to deflect criticism of their own behaviour in this financial meltdown toward others.
Senator Charles Grassley today suggested that financial company executives should apologize or commit suicide for failure much like they do in Japan. Hell, if the senate took Grassley's advice more than half of them would be dead.
The congressional outrage over AIG is made even more preposterous when you look at the roster of congressional leaders who took large campaign contributions from the company. Among them Sen. Chris Dodd of Ct. who is allegedly responsible for including language in legislation that specifically excluded bans on contractual bonuses before Feb. 11, 2009, or long after the government took control of AIG. The exact language:
Crack down on bonuses, retention awards and incentive compensation:
Bonuses can only be paid in the form of long-term restricted stock, equal to no greater than 1/3 of total annual compensation, and will vest only when taxpayer funds are repaid. There is an exception for contractually obligated bonuses agreed on before Feb. 11, 2009.
The issue of bonuses is a red herring for a variety of reasons. The primary one is that financial companies like AIG, Merrill Lynch, Smith Barney and others are made up of interlocking groups of business units. Some larger and some smaller but most sharing the same thing in common. The members of those business units have control of a book of business upon which they produce income for the parent company via a commission structure. The producers are essentially free agents in the market place. If the company they work for becomes unstable or an annoyance there are other competitors that will gladly pay these producers large bonuses in advance to move their production from company A to company B.
Company A has a choice of letting the producers go or they can pay a retention bonus in exchange for a employment contract for a period of time. The bulk of AIG, Merrill and other companies that have taken TARP money are money making enterprises and only smaller portions of the management are responsible for the companies financial meltdown.
Since the taxpayer is essentially the owners of company A, is it really in our best interest to be letting the top talent of AIG bolt to other less contentious places of employment? After all, the best way for the taxpayer to recover the investment in AIG is to have the company return to profitability or to liquidate its many profitable business units in an orderly fashion. So what you say? Let the scoundrels work for small money because the rest of us are angry? Well I have news for you, anyone in the money business that is eligible for a million dollar bonus is a BIG producer and will likely find a new home pretty quickly. Do you think they should hang around and help to pay the taxpayer back out of loyalty?
The public is in an cranky mood over this and other "bailouts" but in reality most of this money going to these firms is at a price that is highly advantageous to the taxpayer. Many of the firms that are eligible for this TARP money are simply saying no thanks because of the terms at which it is being made available.
This is not a simple blank check to the industry. The money comes in exchange for stock, preferred stock, warrants, bonds and other high interest debt vehicles. In a few years when all is said and done, the taxpayer may profit handsomely on these deals. In an age when we are talking in trillions, an extra hundred million or so to pay the people to get the companies straightened out amounts to chicken feed.
Senator Charles Grassley today suggested that financial company executives should apologize or commit suicide for failure much like they do in Japan. Hell, if the senate took Grassley's advice more than half of them would be dead.
The congressional outrage over AIG is made even more preposterous when you look at the roster of congressional leaders who took large campaign contributions from the company. Among them Sen. Chris Dodd of Ct. who is allegedly responsible for including language in legislation that specifically excluded bans on contractual bonuses before Feb. 11, 2009, or long after the government took control of AIG. The exact language:
Crack down on bonuses, retention awards and incentive compensation:
Bonuses can only be paid in the form of long-term restricted stock, equal to no greater than 1/3 of total annual compensation, and will vest only when taxpayer funds are repaid. There is an exception for contractually obligated bonuses agreed on before Feb. 11, 2009.
The issue of bonuses is a red herring for a variety of reasons. The primary one is that financial companies like AIG, Merrill Lynch, Smith Barney and others are made up of interlocking groups of business units. Some larger and some smaller but most sharing the same thing in common. The members of those business units have control of a book of business upon which they produce income for the parent company via a commission structure. The producers are essentially free agents in the market place. If the company they work for becomes unstable or an annoyance there are other competitors that will gladly pay these producers large bonuses in advance to move their production from company A to company B.
Company A has a choice of letting the producers go or they can pay a retention bonus in exchange for a employment contract for a period of time. The bulk of AIG, Merrill and other companies that have taken TARP money are money making enterprises and only smaller portions of the management are responsible for the companies financial meltdown.
Since the taxpayer is essentially the owners of company A, is it really in our best interest to be letting the top talent of AIG bolt to other less contentious places of employment? After all, the best way for the taxpayer to recover the investment in AIG is to have the company return to profitability or to liquidate its many profitable business units in an orderly fashion. So what you say? Let the scoundrels work for small money because the rest of us are angry? Well I have news for you, anyone in the money business that is eligible for a million dollar bonus is a BIG producer and will likely find a new home pretty quickly. Do you think they should hang around and help to pay the taxpayer back out of loyalty?
The public is in an cranky mood over this and other "bailouts" but in reality most of this money going to these firms is at a price that is highly advantageous to the taxpayer. Many of the firms that are eligible for this TARP money are simply saying no thanks because of the terms at which it is being made available.
This is not a simple blank check to the industry. The money comes in exchange for stock, preferred stock, warrants, bonds and other high interest debt vehicles. In a few years when all is said and done, the taxpayer may profit handsomely on these deals. In an age when we are talking in trillions, an extra hundred million or so to pay the people to get the companies straightened out amounts to chicken feed.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Diminishing Local Coverage
The conditions in the newspaper industry took a decidedly personal turn last week as many people in Burlington political, public safety and community organization circles were taken aback by the news that long time Burlington reporter for the Times Chronicle, Steve DeMarco had been laid off from his position at the paper.
The news was shocking in that Steve has been in his position for 19 years and certainly knew his beat both on the news and the local sports scene. In the old days you would think a newspaper would treasure that kind of institutional knowledge and that a person could feel relatively secure in his position but not today.
These are entirely different times in many industries and most notably in the newspaper industry. The loss of Steve from the paper into the heart of a national recession and into the teeth of an industry depression clearly illustrates how serious the situation is.
This is a personal blow but it is also a serious blow to the community. The loss of Steve from the daily newspaper is another indication of just how far local coverage has fallen in the past few years. That lack of community coverage means that the Burlington voter gets less information and are that much further insulated from what is going on around them.
I can illustrate the difference since the late nineties. Beginning in 1991 I began a program called Editor’s Roundtable. The programmed featured the then three highly respected editors of the local newspapers. They were Fredi Heinemen of the Burlington News, Liz Banks of the Times Union and John White of the Daily Times Chronicle. The program lasted for over 13 years with Tom Murphy Jr. and Lucy Damiani succeeding me as moderator.
The format of the program was very simple, the moderator would toss out various subjects and three very experienced non partisan editors would give their opinions on matters of public and political interest on the local state and national scene. The programmed also branched off in live election night coverage as well as countless political debates.
It is to Burlington’s public interest detriment that a program like that is no longer possible simply because we now have perhaps 3 reporters for 2 newspapers covering the whole town where before we had 3 editors as well as a number of reporters and stringers covering the town.
There are possibilities for filling this gap. A new internet based paper has been talked about (by myself and others) and Burlington Cable Access News reporting can pick up some of the slack. However, something must bridge the local information gap. An uninformed electorate is in nobody’s best interest except people who don’t want anyone to know what is going on.
The news was shocking in that Steve has been in his position for 19 years and certainly knew his beat both on the news and the local sports scene. In the old days you would think a newspaper would treasure that kind of institutional knowledge and that a person could feel relatively secure in his position but not today.
These are entirely different times in many industries and most notably in the newspaper industry. The loss of Steve from the paper into the heart of a national recession and into the teeth of an industry depression clearly illustrates how serious the situation is.
This is a personal blow but it is also a serious blow to the community. The loss of Steve from the daily newspaper is another indication of just how far local coverage has fallen in the past few years. That lack of community coverage means that the Burlington voter gets less information and are that much further insulated from what is going on around them.
I can illustrate the difference since the late nineties. Beginning in 1991 I began a program called Editor’s Roundtable. The programmed featured the then three highly respected editors of the local newspapers. They were Fredi Heinemen of the Burlington News, Liz Banks of the Times Union and John White of the Daily Times Chronicle. The program lasted for over 13 years with Tom Murphy Jr. and Lucy Damiani succeeding me as moderator.
The format of the program was very simple, the moderator would toss out various subjects and three very experienced non partisan editors would give their opinions on matters of public and political interest on the local state and national scene. The programmed also branched off in live election night coverage as well as countless political debates.
It is to Burlington’s public interest detriment that a program like that is no longer possible simply because we now have perhaps 3 reporters for 2 newspapers covering the whole town where before we had 3 editors as well as a number of reporters and stringers covering the town.
There are possibilities for filling this gap. A new internet based paper has been talked about (by myself and others) and Burlington Cable Access News reporting can pick up some of the slack. However, something must bridge the local information gap. An uninformed electorate is in nobody’s best interest except people who don’t want anyone to know what is going on.
Thursday, March 05, 2009
Set Some Hurdles
Representatives of Patriot Partners are in the headlines of the Daily Times again this evening trumpeting the idea that a development on the Landlocked Land would "generate considerable revenue." "There should be a discussion to see if there is any interest," followed by this quote, "It would be irresponsible not to discuss this." Well, there was considerable discussion with the legislative body who would make the ultimate decision on this proposal and that body decided there was no interest in discussing the subject further.
Just because the proponent has only 15 months or so left on their option does not mean that the town needs to respond any further to any entreaties they might make. Particularly in light of the fact that several of the assertions by the representatives simply do not make any sense. The idea that only they can provide a life sciences campus is nonsense. The Northwest Park already has zoning in place and could break ground tomorrow on a million plus square feet of life sciences space provided they had one thing, a client that wanted to use that much space. In addition, in 15 months when the option expires and the economy improves the town would be free to negotiate with the highest bidder if it chose to.
But for the sake of being more than fair and bending over backwards to accommodate what seems to be a pie in the sky assertion, let's qualify the representatives comments by setting a few hurdles, if overcome, then the town should certainly consider their proposal seriously.
Let's begin with the option itself. The option was written in exchange for value from Cadillac Fairview. That value was a reduction in the dollar value in a legal settlement which the town owed them. After the subsequent bankruptcy of Cadillac Fairview the option went to a successor company called Prentiss Properties. Apparently, after that company's demise, the trail of the option grows murky. How did Patriot Partners come into possession of it? Did they acquire it at a bankruptcy fire sale for a song? If so then the first goodwill offer they should make prior to any discussions is an offer of value to the town. After all, the option was granted by us yet we got no value from Patriot Partners. Perhaps they should start with an offer of say a million dollars in cash for an unconditional, non refundable payment for the remaining time on the option as well as a million dollars for each one year extension on the option?
This is not at all unreasonable in the real estate market. The town is the grantor of the option and Patriot has not paid the town any value in exchange for that option. If they expect the town to recognize any exclusivity of an option then Patriot Partners should expect to pay for that privilege. The option only has value if the grantor allows them the use of it. If, ultimately the town rejects the project then the option payments would be non refundable and the option would expire.
Next they would need to prove some of the assertions they have made about how financially strong they are in the market place. From what the rest of us can see is that not much in the way of development is being financed, lenders are frozen, unemployment is rising and the economy is in the tank in general. If the proponents are immune from such things then perhaps they can prove their viability by posting a 20 million dollar letter of credit with the town? After all, they know that the town would not even consider sale of the property under that amount so if they really have the go power to do it then why not make them prove it as a starting point?
These two items would be good faith actions by the proponent that would show that they are willing to pay for the value of the option and that they are more substantial than simple quotes printed in the newspaper. If they could surmount these reasonable hurdles then perhaps the town should be willing to open discussions, if not then they are simply blowing smoke hoping to make a score on an option they picked up for nothing.
Just because the proponent has only 15 months or so left on their option does not mean that the town needs to respond any further to any entreaties they might make. Particularly in light of the fact that several of the assertions by the representatives simply do not make any sense. The idea that only they can provide a life sciences campus is nonsense. The Northwest Park already has zoning in place and could break ground tomorrow on a million plus square feet of life sciences space provided they had one thing, a client that wanted to use that much space. In addition, in 15 months when the option expires and the economy improves the town would be free to negotiate with the highest bidder if it chose to.
But for the sake of being more than fair and bending over backwards to accommodate what seems to be a pie in the sky assertion, let's qualify the representatives comments by setting a few hurdles, if overcome, then the town should certainly consider their proposal seriously.
Let's begin with the option itself. The option was written in exchange for value from Cadillac Fairview. That value was a reduction in the dollar value in a legal settlement which the town owed them. After the subsequent bankruptcy of Cadillac Fairview the option went to a successor company called Prentiss Properties. Apparently, after that company's demise, the trail of the option grows murky. How did Patriot Partners come into possession of it? Did they acquire it at a bankruptcy fire sale for a song? If so then the first goodwill offer they should make prior to any discussions is an offer of value to the town. After all, the option was granted by us yet we got no value from Patriot Partners. Perhaps they should start with an offer of say a million dollars in cash for an unconditional, non refundable payment for the remaining time on the option as well as a million dollars for each one year extension on the option?
This is not at all unreasonable in the real estate market. The town is the grantor of the option and Patriot has not paid the town any value in exchange for that option. If they expect the town to recognize any exclusivity of an option then Patriot Partners should expect to pay for that privilege. The option only has value if the grantor allows them the use of it. If, ultimately the town rejects the project then the option payments would be non refundable and the option would expire.
Next they would need to prove some of the assertions they have made about how financially strong they are in the market place. From what the rest of us can see is that not much in the way of development is being financed, lenders are frozen, unemployment is rising and the economy is in the tank in general. If the proponents are immune from such things then perhaps they can prove their viability by posting a 20 million dollar letter of credit with the town? After all, they know that the town would not even consider sale of the property under that amount so if they really have the go power to do it then why not make them prove it as a starting point?
These two items would be good faith actions by the proponent that would show that they are willing to pay for the value of the option and that they are more substantial than simple quotes printed in the newspaper. If they could surmount these reasonable hurdles then perhaps the town should be willing to open discussions, if not then they are simply blowing smoke hoping to make a score on an option they picked up for nothing.
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