Businessman Craig Yarde just sent this along:
To the Citizens of Bristol,
When I woke up this morning I looked at the election results and I went one for two. "Obama Won"- that's the big won. A Change For The Future. Where I struck out was the COO referendum question Number 5. It's a great country where you can express your views openly. It's also a great community we have here in Bristol. Since I started this mess, I want to thank the eight thousand eight hundred citizens who voted " Yes For The COO ". It's obvious that the majority of citizens did not want the COO, but I think through this democratic process most now realize the Mayor needs more support to help him and the council with a daunting amount of job responsibilities. Art's a extremely popular Mayor and will be around for a long time. I just hope he and the council does the proper analysis to access the work load and management responsibilities before they hire a couple of part timers. I got bloodied up the last eight months but that's part of the process of change. Thanks
to everyone.
Copyright 2008. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com
26 comments:
Now that the COO vote is over you can enroll in an writing and grammer course.
Craig, you should hold your head high. While I voted "no" on the COO, I truly believe that your convictions were from the heart and not politically motivated like minor, cockayne and johnson.
Thanks for nothing Craig. Now go back to Southington.
The sad thing is nothing will change and the city will look the same as it is now 10 years from now. Thats the sad thing. And to all the people that where not standing out at the polls..Its a shame that barley any young people came out to cast a vote..That goes to tell you that our city is slowly dwindling and something needs to be done fast...if we don't do something fast you can bet taxes will be through the roof and a city that looks worse then it does now. People people people start thinking the future and not today!
When do I get to be so important that when I check the morning news I can pass along my personal comments?
Mr Yarde how about a cure for the common cold?
A Darfur solution?
Getting my teen to clean his room?
Hey post 6:41
What world are you living in? Can I get some of those pills that you are taking? The young votes came out in droves this year, just look at the election stats.
Bristol has changed through the years and it will be different ten years from now. Just think, Rte. 72 will be finished, albeit 30 years later from whence it was proposed, but it will be done.
I do agree with you on the fact that there are not enough new people that want to get involved and get their feet wet. That, in itself is a shame. This is where the youngsters need to get involved because the decisions that are being made today are going to affect them tomorrow and they need to have a say. We can do without the complainers who do nothing but write on this page complaining about how poorly everything is being done. It appears that most of the writers here are content to hide behind their computer and vent their frustrations then to appear at a council meeting and voice their complaints because people will know who they really are.
Yarde gave some good arguments for the COO. However Der Leader Bill Stortz and Generalisimo Nicastro made better arguments aginst it.
I don't believe Yarde voted for Obomination. But either if he or he said he did, I lost a degree of respect for him.
john reek:
I have a "darfur solution" for you. Offer yourself as a martyr to the Presdient there. Or perhaps Obama can speak to him at their next family reunion.
To John Reek
I guess that you will be important enough when you sell your business for thirty million.
The important thing is that Mr. Yarde acknowledged that he started a "mess". He should have thought the process over completely, including what the costs were that would have been attritable to the COO position.
I don't agree with Yarde that the majority of citizens who voted against the COO now realize that the Mayor needs more support. I believe these citizens voted against the COO because of the potential costs and the potential rise in taxes to fund this position, not because the Mayor needs support. This is the point that Yarde, Johnson, Cockayne, Minor never told the citizens about. If everybody was informed about the potential costs with no beneficial savings to the taxpayers, they would have not had enough people to sign the petition to get it on the ballot and they would not have gotten eight thousand eight hundred votes in favor of the COO. Instead of telling the voters the facts, they tried to wage a war pitting the taxpayers against the unions which was deceitful to say the least.
Yarde got bloodied on this one, not because of the process of change, but because he associated himself with the likes of Ken Johnson, who was not in this for change but in this for himself. Next time, Yarde should pick whom he associates with more closely.
God Bless Mike Petosa for all his hard work on behalf the unions!!!
Thank you Mike for single-handedly bringing down the COO!!! (I didn't know you had that much power and control in Bristol)
"Petosa for Council 09"
You want to mess with the unions, you've got to mess with Petosa, he may be small, but he's mighty.
God Bless the AFL-CIO!!!
Labor Unions Rule!!!
Let's bring out the "Louisville Sluggers" and raise Hoffa from the dead. Our numbers may be down but we're a force to be reckoned with.
You nailed it 9:45!
I am a city union employee who was in favor of the change in theory until I started seeing all the signs up all over town making the issue a "taxpayer vs unions" issue. I have been paying taxes in this town for a long time and took exception to this portrayal of the issue...and so did my wife, and so did my family, and so did all my relatives, etc. Whose idea was it to put up those signs?
"I believe these citizens voted against the COO because of the potential costs and the potential rise in taxes to fund this position, not because the Mayor needs support. This is the point that Yarde, Johnson, Cockayne, Minor never told the citizens about."
You are a liar. When the question came up many weeks ago, the supporters of the COO immediately replied "approximately $250,000 annually" based on what other city managers in CT are making, plus benefits, plus the cost of a secretary. Minor said this again in his interview in the Bristol Observer last month. It's unfortunate that you opponents to the COO had to use dishonest scare tactics and lies like this to frighten people into voting no. That truly raises legitimate questions as to what was your real objection to the COO.
10:59
He should also enroll in a basic municipal government course and attend some city meetings.
Maybe Craig should have made it more obvious that he was the one who wanted the COO postion and should have "campaigned" for it as if he wanted the job (just my opinion, maybe he didn't want it, I don't know for sure). That may have helped. The anonymous person that said taxes would go up to pay for the position and that was why it didn't get passed, please do some simple math. There are over 60,000 people currently living in Bristol, even if you did an even division using 60,000 residents picking up the $250K salary that is just over 4 dollars a person, so I highly doubt that was the reason. To Jon Reek, whatever your personal issue is with Mr. Yarde, this isn't the place to air it, have some decency. For the union employee, you want to know who put those signs up? Your own union did. They admitted in an article in the Bristol Press that they placed signs stating not to vote for the COO in all union members lawns. I'm not saying the union issue was solely brought up by them, but they certainly helped fuel the fire. And a record number of young people did turn out to vote this year, maybe not at one particular polling place, but the numbers were up by a good amount. Hopefully this election will help younger people realize they really can make a change and help vote in someone who is younger and has a farther reaching view into the future than the current Bristol administration has. A change does need to be made, a town is still a business and should be run like one. There is money there to be saved, just as in all businesses, we shouldn't back away from trying to find those savings. Now we just need to find a different route to get to them. Saving money helps everyone in the city no matter of age, race, gender, or political affiliation and we should all be able to unite under that banner.
Steve - when you get a chance can you please find the stats on the % of age groups that came out to vote V's the amount that are registered that did not come out? The folks at Mt.View did not see any young people all day - same with Northeast..
The signs in question said taxpayer vs. unions vote for the COO.
It is pretty clear that the message implied that the COO was somehow going to get rid of the unions.
If that is the grassroots spirit the RTC was trying to generate it backfired.
November 6, 2008 6:18 PM:
I agree. I wrote a tongue-in-cheek letter one time mocking the coddling of the public teachers. Gary Schaffrick and the know-it-alls on the RTC turned on me like back-stabbing weasels.
Now they attack unions directly in a campaign and they get smoked.
LMAO!!
"God Bless Mike Petosa for all his hard work on behalf the unions!!!
Thank you Mike for single-handedly bringing down the COO!!! (I didn't know you had that much power and control in Bristol)
"Petosa for Council 09"
You want to mess with the unions, you've got to mess with Petosa, he may be small, but he's mighty.
God Bless the AFL-CIO!!!
Labor Unions Rule!!!
Let's bring out the "Louisville Sluggers" and raise Hoffa from the dead. Our numbers may be down but we're a force to be reckoned with."
it's idiots like this that prove why the unions are a cancer to the competitiveness of industry in the united states. just look at what's happening to Theis Precision Steel Corp. the overpaid, underperforming union members have pushed this once-mighty company to the brink of extinction. yes, the united states cannot be competitive in the steel industry with cheap overseas labor, but overinflated union wages and benefits are causing all sorts of companies in a wide variety of industries to fold. unions were necessary during the industrial revolution. they are useless now, and can readily be summed up by the clown who wrote the comment above.
-billy from bristol
To Chris F
Maybe you should read the posts more closely. The union member asked who put the signs up that said "Taxpayers vs Unions", I'm quite positive that his union did not put those signs up, it was the COO supporters trying to wage an un-honest, deceitful campaign against the unions and it backfired.
BOO HOO, BOO HOO, we lost the COO!! LOL
A Town, City, State, Federal Governments are not businesses and cannot be run as businesses. They can try to run as efficiently as possible but it is a fact that they cannot be run as a business. A business is expected to make money from selling its products or services. A Government provides services to its citizens and those citizens pay taxes to cover those services. Government does not make money by providing those services. Hence, no taxes, no services, plain and simple.
Hurrah, Ward gets to keep his 110K position.
Hey Yard, how about coming out with some the millions of dollar savings you were talking about!
Yeah, I agree!
1:18 - dummy up, ward's pay is not 110k, it's 100k and regardless, he saved all of us $250,000 to $300,000 - I'll take that any day.
who in hell is John Reek?
11:43pm - Mister John Reek to you.
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