Looks like the anti-tax group doesn’t want to be irrelevant after all…

The West Hartford Taxpayers Association has decided that it will push for a budget referendum after all. According to the Courant, “the taxpayers’ group is asking that the town cut its 7 percent spending increase in half, to 3.5 percent.”

Is that a joke?

I can’t afford all these tax hikes either, but simply holding steady in the face of rising energy costs — which hit the town even harder than the rest of us — is impossible with that sort of target.

I might consider it responsible if the group also had a list of cuts that we could generally agree on that would bring down the spending. But the only list I ever saw, printed as an ad in the West Hartford News, was utterly laughable.

I don’t know who these people are, really, but I do know that they don’t have the best interests of West Hartford’s families in mind. If the referendum comes, we need to rally together and pass this budget.

Famed scientist, from West Hartford, dies

I had no idea that West Hartford was the hometown of the scientist who developed chaos theory until the man was dead and gone.

Edward N. Lorenz, an MIT meteorologist,  wrote the influential 1972 paper “Predictability: Does the Flap of a Butterfly’s Wings in Brazil Set Off a Tornado in Texas?”

The idea of chaos theory is that even tiny changes can lead to massive consequences – something that applied to weather, of course, but also most of life.

Lorenz was 90 at his death.

LA Times story link

Last day of school to be set tonight

Had this forwarded to me today. I think it’s an interesting issue, but I’m pretty sure the school year should end on June 24th, despite any hardships it might create for a few. I’m not particularly worried about when camps start.

Dear friends,

The West Hartford Board of Ed will be meeting tonight, Thurs. evening (4/24).  One of the issues they will be discussing is the scheduled last day of school for the Town of West Hartford which is now Tues. June 24.  This has been rescheduled from the original date of  Friday June 20 in order to make up for our two snow days.  This schedule allows for the schools to maintain their 184 day calendar, four more than that required by the state.

Many of the camps that the West Hartford children typically attend for the summer begin prior to June 24.  This creates quite a conflict for these families.  Multiple families have said that their children will just miss the last 2 days.  Instead, the Board has the ability to forgive these 2 days in the schedule to reduce the conflict.  They have done so in the past when it has conflicted with the start of summer school.

In addition, all three town middle school graduations are now scheduled for Monday night, June 23.  In order for 8th graders to attend their graduation, they will need to miss the beginning of camp.  For some families this is not even an option due to parent work conflicts or camp restrictions.

If you have feelings regarding this issue, I ask that you consider sending an email to express them to the addresses listed below prior to the meeting on Thurs 4/24.

boardmembers@whps.org (this will then automatically forward to all 7 Board members)

tim_dunn@whps.org

david_sklarz@whps.org

karen_list@whps.org

Thank you for your attention.

Budget approved.

Well, I guess it’s done. The taxpayers’ association isn’t contesting it. So we’re all going to dig deep and pay up.

I’m glad we’re not having another bitter fight, but, damn, I do wish there was a way to hold down the ever increasing property taxes. Are you listening, Jodi Rell? 

Future of Bishops Corner on agenda tonight

The Bishops Corner Neighborhood Group and the Bishops Corner Branch library invite you to attend a discussion of plans for the reconstruction and development of 2558 Albany Avenue (the property next to Staples) on Thursday, April 10. The discussion will be led by Gregg Nanni of Project Enterprise. Please join us at 7:00 p.m. and take this opportunity to share your ideas for Bishops Corner with your neighbors. The meeting will be held in the Senior Center’s large meeting room.

If anyone goes and wants to tell us what happened, that would be wonderful.

8th graders commit suicide

An eighth grader named Norberto Jimenez at King Phillip killed himself. It’s so sad. The schools sent home a letter saying the boy had died unexpectedly but left out that he hung himself. That’s an important detail for parents looking to counsel youngsters.

Update: Another 8th grader committed suicide Wednesday morning. Sam Joseph, who attends Sedgwick but used to go to Bristow, killed himself.

Please, parents and concerned adults, check on the children in your lives. Let’s do everything we can to make sure that nobody else dies.

Hall Human Rights Coalition taking action

The Hall Human Rights Coalition has been doing “teach-ins” at Hall, KP and some elementary schools in the past two weeks about their new initiative – Pennies for Peace.  Inspired by Greg Mortenson’s book “Three Cups of Tea,” students have been raising awareness about the need for education in Afghanistan and Pakistan.  They have been collecting pennies to send to the Central Asia Institute, and are having a culminating event on April 8th at Barnes & Noble in Blue Back Square.  We will have some guest readers (town council members, hopefully board of ed memebers, favorite teachers, etc.) reading selections from Mortenson’s book, and students sharing their poetry, prose, and music about what they do to make small change in their community and the world.

More information can be found on our website: http://www.rockandlearn.org/index_files/Page745.htm