My laptop was in the shop getting repaired and I hate typing on the desktop. I’m back in business now and I’ll try and update you on the recent politics. Starting the political finagling was Peter Reszka, who I spoke to after the town board meeting two weeks ago.
Pete informed me that he and his wife are in the process of filing lawsuits against the Hamburg Sun weekly newspaper and personally against Dan Meyers as Editor of the Sun Newspaper. I was informed by Peter that he would get copies of the paperwork to me as soon as it was filed. Pete told me who his lawyer was but unfortunately I didn’t write it down and now I can’t remember who it is.
Apparently Peter and his wife are a bit upset over an article posted in the Hamburg Sun defaming Mrs. Reszka. The article ran in the “Letters to the Editor” section several weeks ago and Mrs. Reszka and Pete responded in kind. When the Sun printed the response to the defaming article it was edited by Dan Meyers then printed. The Reszka’s are very upset that Mrs. Reszka is being attacked politically even though she has nothing to do with politics and when she tries to defend herself, her words were changed and printed. Look for this to get nasty folks and I don’t blame Peter and his wife one bit.
If the Sun News is going to print inflammatory letters then they should allow a response that is unedited.
Next, We had our first Hamburg Recreation Advisory Board meeting and the hot topic was supposed to be the Jeff Walker proposal to privatize the Hamburg Ice Arena. As soon as the meeting started, Tom Quatroche asked to table the issue until the next meeting in May. I wasn’t very happy about that but being the new member I figured their are better battles to fight right now. I wasn’t very impressed at what is actually accomplished at these meetings. I was the only non-employee asking any semi-tough questions. The rest seemed to just go along with the flow.
The reason Tom wanted to table the Ice Arena issue was because Town Attorney Mr. Farrell hasn’t given an opinion as to whether or not the town can legally make the move from public ownership to a private lease/management facility. So Tom decided to not even discuss the issue even though he knows that Jeff Walker is asking for a vote by the Town Council by the end of March so construction can begin. I am going to write the full details, of the proposal as I know them right now, by the end of the week if I don’t get some more insight from the town or by the group trying to make this deal happen.
I also have a lot of facts and figures to post from that meeting about money and participation at the different recreation facilities in the town. Curt Herrmann handed out several fact sheets and I was impressed at the figures. One fact was a little deceiving and I asked for a clarification and Curt said he would get it to me soon. That was about how many people visited and used the town fitness facility at the beach. Curt’s paperwork claims that more that 22,000 people used the facility last year but it doesn’t distinguish how many are repeat users.
I asked for a breakdown as to how many people use the facility and then break it down further to see how many use it more than once or twice a week and so on. I don’t think we get any information by saying we had 22,000 people use the facility last year, if it breaks down to just a few hundred people use it regularly. We need to know the specifics not the BS that just trys to make the place look busy. I hope to see the breakdowns soon. I may just go over there this week to get the figures right away. Curt said they are easy to get off the computer at the facility so I just may stop by.
I also asked, AGAIN, for copies of every contract with the Town Recreation Department. Once again Marty Deneke said he would get right on it. We’ll have to just wait and see. I’m specifically interested to see how many Little League Baseball/Softball leagues there are and how many kids are associated with those groups. I want to do a small study to see how many kids in these leagues are actually from Hamburg and how much these leagues are paying the Town for the use of the town parks.
Here is my thinking.
From my experience these leagues charge about $60 – $80 a kid to play ball. They also make the kids sell candy at one point during the season. So these leagues are pulling in a nice buck every season. I know they don’t pay their coaches, they don’t buy lots of new equipment every year and it’s my understanding they only rent the town parks for a dollar a year. Each kid gets a ball cap and team t-shirt that costs about $15 total per kid when purchased in bulk and the teams get a few new baseballs. That leaves thousands of dollars just sitting in bank accounts for these league organisers to spend as they wish. I want to get to the bottom of where all this money goes. It’s my understanding that the town can force an audit of any of these organisations and if I can’t get any good answers to the money questions then I will ask for that audit and ask the Advisory Board to get on-board.
I wonder if these leagues are being used as cash cows for private vacations for league organisers and their families? If their is a lot of cash left over each year then perhaps it’s time to make the leagues pay to use the town parks and facilities. What do you think? Would you like to know where all the money goes?
Finally, I’ll get the paperwork I received at the Advisory Board meeting up sometime this week. I have to scan it into the computer and then use all kinds of programs to get it on the web. Word-press isn’t the most friendly computer program for blogging but I’ll get it up eventually.
One last thing, I have the information about how much money all of the Police Command Officers make. Do any of you want that info posted? I got it last year and never did anything with it. I don’t know if their is anymore interest in that info out there.
