REMINDER
FROM THE NORTHWOOD
CRANKPULLERS
This is the last week for saving the $10.00 registration fee.
Due to new NHSA requirement, registrations are now done on line
via our website
www.northwoodcrankpullers.com. Any registrations done
prior to 12/31/15 will save $10.00.
And be sure to save the date for our dance on January 16th
@7pm-midnight at Lake Shore Farm in Northwood. DJ, cash
bar, snacks provided… come on out for a night of fun and
dancing.
Readers ages 8-12 are invited to join Chesley Memorial Library’s
Junior Book Club! Our first meeting will be on Thursday,
January 7th, from 4:30-5:45 at Chesley Memorial Library.
We will be discussing Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library by
Chris Grabenstein. Sign up to reserve your copy of the
book either in person or by calling the library.
Letter To The Editor
To the Editor,
I’m going to bring up the town and
school budget repeatedly over the next two months. If you’re not
interested just put me under your parakeets unread, I’ll
understand. It says something (you can decide what) that I spend
a lot of time on the budgets.
The Northwood School budget is built
without any sense of real need or compassion. I don’t say that
lightly and understand that I just irritated a number of people.
Just look at the last two years of unspent money. Rest assured
that this school board member would, if he had any trust in our
financial data, have voted to spend some of that money on
genuine needs. I don’t, didn’t. Unspent, almost $700,000. If we
don’t need it we shouldn’t take it from you.
After much drama the 16/17 year budget
is $11,866,715. I wish I had room to tell you of the bs, whoops
I mean drama. The budget should not be more than $11.778,544.
There are 5 extra Coe-Brown students and two extra Coe-Brown
special education student differentials in the budget, “ just in
case.” That is $88,171 just for starters that should come out.
Due to your generosity we have $112,000 (high school)+ $50,000
(special education) in trust accounts for those possibilities
and another emergency retention fund of $216,000. Totaling
$380,000 of your money, generously given, sitting in trust
accounts for a huge influx of students. Five years ago all three
districts in our SAU had 726 students each, We will likely be
under 600 in the 16/17 year.
Budgeting is very important. The board
simply went along with the SAU. They let the fox into the hen
house. I’ll talk about our default budget later, you be the
judge.
Tim Jandebeur
Northwood
Letter To The Editor
What Ties It All Together
What makes Bernie Sanders such an
appealing candidate to so many of us? I know that for me it
really matters that, instead of taking one issue at a time and
promising a fix for it, he has an overarching view of how all of
the issues fit together. No other candidate has made that
argument with such force and perseverance, that the pain and,
yes, fear that so many of us are experiencing as we contemplate
our futures, and the futures of our children and grandchildren,
all of that is part and parcel of the domination of what I call
“big money” on our political system.
Bernie sees the pattern, that all of the issues, from the
climate crisis to student loans, are tied together by the fact
that enormous profits have been and are being made by the
industries involved. Part of those profits go to campaign
finance contributions. He understands that there is no real fix
without ending this corruption of our system, and the first step
is running one’s campaign on contributions from individuals and
individual workers through their unions. The differences between
union and corporate donations are well described in this
article, do read it all:
http://www.demos.org/publication/do-corporations-unions-face-same-rules-political-spending
Bernie’s campaign is a WE campaign,
and the idea that we the people as individuals must fund it is
part and parcel of this. We fund the campaign, we vote and we
hold elected officials accountable.
Lucy Edwards
Northwood
