Unify Piermont (unifypiermont@live.com)
The 2009-2010 Village Budget is Final
As expected by Unify Piermont, the Village Board approved the budget on April 28, 2009 unchanged from the previous budget hearing and without incorporating any of the suggestions and concerns expressed by residents. This was not a surprise.
What was a surprise was that the Mayor did not allow any resident comments to be heard, although the Village Board did take the opportunity to pat themselves on the back once again and lecture residents on the Board's fiscal prudence.
The approved budget increases spending 3.4% which seems high given the current economic conditions. However, one budget may not present a fair picture. Let's look at a longer time frame, the period the Village Board was referring to during their extended period of self-congratulation.
As the chart shows, spending has almost doubled in the past ten years. But maybe the spending increases bear some relationship to inflation during this same ten year period.
Let's compare Village spending to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) during this same ten year period.
The CPI went up 25% during the 8 years available, Village spending 88%. It seems unlikely that inflation will catch up this year and next.
Typical Resident Comments Received by Unify Piermont:
"We are outraged with the huge budget."
"Something has got to give. The communication between the mayor, board and village is awful. I am sick to death of meetings where the response to a question is that the questioner should have been at a prior meeting. That is not the way to encourage involvement (wait, maybe that's the agenda...)"
"Most of the Boards comments are gibberish and spoken among themselves. The residents have a difficult time hearing their comments. Since they bond for everything under the sun, why not bond for a microphone so we can clearly hear what they have to say."
You decide if Village spending is excessive, Unify Piermont believes it is.
This message was prepared by Unify Piermont which is dedicated to returning responsible, representative government to Piermont.
Unify Piermont is a group made up of village residents from all areas of the village, and from all political parties. We need to create a local village government that will address the problems created by the current and previous administrations.
We need your help, your input and your involvement. If you share our concerns about Village taxes, Village debt and the lack of any meaningful communication from our Village Board; then e-mail us at unifypiermont@live.com with your name and address or leave a message at 845-613-7675. We will notify you when a new posting goes up on our website at http://www.unifypiermont.blogspot.com/.
