Edit: Yes, it’s true, there is no sound until 2:45 or so.
It was a packed agenda tonight, and I swear, the night got weirder and weirder as it went on. Stick around for Councilor’s Forum if you can: Livengood somehow manages to top the Utter Lunacy of his comments during the previous meeting (Bloggers Are Ruining Everything?) with a jab at people who “push abortions” and defensively breaking out his Bible to read us all some scripture in honor of the True Meaning of Christmas.
I, for one, would like to wish everyone a Happy Hanukkah this evening, and if there are any Pagans out there in Southbridge Blog Land, I hope y’all have a very nice Solstice tomorrow as well. In the interest of full disclosure, I happen to be a Christian myself, but I take the whole love-thy-neighbor thing pretty seriously and I am not threatened by the idea of respecting diversity.
I would like to personally thank chairwomen kathy nikolla for giving me full respect and caring enough to share her personal opinion on my neighborhood and my wonderful neighbors who have been struggling since the june 1st tornado. i try not to get into the politics in this town, i am still relatively new here, and i have read and heard all kinds of horror stories about her, but all i know is she spoke from the heart last night, and i honestly feel like she is going to follow through with her promises to make our neighborhood priority #1 until we get back to normal. thankyou ms. nikola and thankyou to everyone who has been there for us and supported us. look around your area tonight before you go to bed and be thankful for what you have because it can all be taken away in seconds. Merry Christmas everyone
Dan:
I fully understand and sympathize with your immediate concerns.
I suspect, however, that as you live longer in this community and develop a broader view of local government issues, you will realize that you were merely being used as a foil to further the advancement of the ruse of compassionate fascism.
I'm hoping for the best. Dan & his neighbors have been through more than enough this year. :/
Of course we hope for the best. As we found out today in the SEN, the state has authorized $10 million in state funds to help victims of the tornado.
We can only hope that the portion of these funds allocated to Southbridge will be administered a little more responsibly than our town budget.
Oh hey, look how nice Tom C.'s seasonal missive is:
http://www.sturbridgepoliticalwatch.com/2011/12/w…
They're lucky to have him.
Yes, i was very disappointed that Councilor Livengood chose the words that he did-I do not object to someone reading from the New Testament or the Talmud or Old Testament either, if done in the five minutes allotted, but bringing up the subject of abortion during a Town Council meeting during the Season of Advent . If a clinic was coming to Town, he has every right to bring it up. He loved the Meth Clinic-is he claiming he'd vote against a clinic that is coming to town?
Please don't tell me it is acceptable for him to discuss the Birth of Jesus of Nazareth and abortion pushers within seconds of each other, but will be removed by Police if we applaud?
I personally feel abortion is an extreme action, but I am not a medical professional and can not imagine putting myself in a woman's shoes. My feeling is that the best way to seriously reduce the number of abortions is to provide a more secure financial future for single Mothers, to ensure that there is top notch affordable child care, and that there should be significant tax credits for parents on their first $36,000 of earnings, and that the credit should continue until the child is 25 if they are matriculating students.
Ha, if this makes me a Socialist Conservative, sign me up ; )
I just noticed that at the end of the town council rebroadcast there appeared a copyright notice. Can the town copyright material produced with public funds?
According to Bill Galvin's office, videos are included under the Massachusetts Public Records Law. There's a handy guide to MPRL on the Sec. of the Commonwealth's site:
http://www.sec.state.ma.us/pre/prepdf/guide.pdf (p.4 specifically mentions video)
More specific to the video in question right here, the State Archives Records Management Unit specifies specific records retention requirements for this specific sort of video:
"Open Meeting Law: Recordings of Meetings
for Public Television Access Includes any
visual recording of a meeting for the
purpose of airing on personal televisions or
cable television, whether created at the
request of the public body or not, and if
maintained by the public body. "
According to the U.S. Copyright office, Copyright law does not extend to public works, at least at the Federal level:
http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ01.pdf (p.5)
That being said, state and local governments are free to assert copyright on their own "works," all though some "works" are ineligible for this protection. In Massachusetts, public records law is so broad that I'd have a hard time thinking of what sort of public work here in the Bay State would be actually be subject to copyright. Basically everything produced by a public employee is a public record, except for a few very specific things specified in MGL Ch. 4 Section 7 (Scroll down to #26)
http://www.malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/Par…
All that being said, I haven't yet run into any problems getting copies of meeting videos, although there's a bit more of a wait these days due to the cable office being so sparsely staffed. I'll have to ask Barry Davis about his copyright notice the next time I see him.
Good Job Dan! Now we shall wait and see how long before real tree removal and road resurface happen in the Tornado area.
I don't believe Public records can be copyrighted. I read a case in Florida where a town tried to copyright their meetings and the court over ruled them.
Merry Christmas everyone!
it is now friday and i have still yet to receive a call or a visit from DPW or anyone??? we just had two nights in a row of VERY heavy rain and once again…..water problems. i was very hopeful the other night but as usual i am losing hope fast by empty promises. who should i call to get the ball rolling? should i call kathy nikolla, chris clark or the DPW??? i was however told by a source that DPW spent most of the week using their giant trucks to clean leaves along the roadside near southbridge tire……maybe 2 miles from our neighborhood
i guess i should clarify…when i mentioned "empty promises", this wasn't intended for our town council, i meant it more towards many other people and organizations who have told not only us but my neighbors that certain things WILL be done and then they vanish. if it came across as me directing that comment towards the town council fully i apologize, it wasn't my intention.