Posted by MikeNaughton - Fri, May 20, 2011, 8:32 P

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Clark - thanks for the compliment, but the only reason I would run for public office would be that I wanted to do the job and thought that I could be better than the other candidates. For better or for worse, there is no elective position in Montague (or elsewhere) that I really want to do, and I don't see the point in running for one of them just to get the experience of having done so.

I'm happy on the Finance Committee, which is an appointed position -- it suits me, and I think I can (and have been) useful there.

Oops - I guess I'm forgetting town meeting member. I do run for that, but I never had to get signatures or (god forbid) a party endorsement. I won the first time on write-in votes, and I have been on the ballot ever since. Not quite the same thing, and I like it that way! :-)
 

Posted by Mark1 - Fri, May 20, 2011, 1:50 P

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And often "...wait for someone to tell you what to believe about what happened."

Mark1
 

Posted by patrick - Thu, May 19, 2011, 10:59 P

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"You either make things happen, watch what happens or wonder what happened."

Nice one!
 

Posted by Clark - Thu, May 19, 2011, 10:44 P

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The way I see it is that if something is'nt working very well , one needs to try something different--thats all I,m suggesting.
I think it is pretty clear that the public , in general, is FED UP with partisan politics as it is being practiced today.
The problem with partisan politics in a small town is that the "party" endorsed candidate starts out with a base number of that party's base or [blind] voters and the non-endorsed candidate, if there is one, starts out basically at zero so there are tremendous negative odd even to be competetive, say nothing about winning.

Some years ago when I ran and there were two parties that put up candidates there was a "general" saying around that , if you ran as a democrat you started out with almost 800 votes from "straight party voters" and if you ran as a republican , you started out with about 450 votes from "straight party voters". That old wives tale seem to run fairly true. Generally those that wer,nt well know and did,nt campaign generally got about that number or at least "spread" depending under which banner they ran.

Therefore it seems to me the party endorced candidate will win ALMOST every time when there is only one active party and the greater voting public really has NO real reason to vote or to ever REALLY hear there is an election.
I just think it is a real SORRY state of affairs.


I,ll say it one more time Mike------ YOU ought to run for public office by getting the require number of signatures and "put yourself out there" so you really know what is like! Besides, YOU would be a good candidate !

It clearly is MUCH different to DO IT than to talk about it ! Please trust me on that !
 

Posted by MikeNaughton - Thu, May 19, 2011, 9:49 P

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"... it ... could'nt be any worse than having partisan elections with ONLY one party"

The problem _I_ see is that we have elections with only one candidate, and that can't be blamed on partisan elections. There's no restriction on how many candidates can run, and in that selectboard race I think all the candidates may have been Democrats. Sure, only one got the party nomination and got to put the "D" next to their name, but IMHO people who were following the race didn't care about that -- they were voting for the people, and what they thought those people could and would bring to the position.

You say, "The way it is ... who gets elected is being determined by some number less than +/- 40", by which you mean that the party caucus determines the nominee, and the party nominee wins the election. But that's only a problem if there are other potential candidates who don't get the party's nomination and then don't run. My impression is that we have the opposite problem -- that of finding "even one" person willing to step up to run for a vacant office. This year, for trustee of soldiers' memorials (veteran), we had "zero" candidates. That's not partisan elections, that's lack of interest, and IMHO that's the problem.
 

Posted by Clark - Thu, May 19, 2011, 9:24 P

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Mike: I think you are right about the Mark Fairbrother election--I forgot about that one.!!

I don,t KNOW if non-partisan elections would increase the number of voters or candidates but it certainly could'nt be any worse than having partisan elections with ONLY one party. Sounds like some countrys around the world !! The way it is, essentially, in most cases who the candidates are and who gets elected is being determined by some number less than +/- 40.
Some how that is the sign of a non-functioning democracy , it seems to me.
 

Posted by MikeNaughton - Thu, May 19, 2011, 9:16 P

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Clark - I agree with you on non-partisan local elections -- they would be a good thing. But I'm not convinced that they would either increase voter turnout or increase the number of people running. Do you think that they would?

As for competitive elections, wasn't the race for selectman that Mark Fairbrother won fairly competitive? As I recall, there were other viable candidates, and that wasn't that long ago (2009?).
 

Posted by MikeNaughton - Thu, May 19, 2011, 9:13 P

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"So, are you saying that if it was a law that you HAD to vote, the extra 5300 votes would all have been either blank or for Donald Duck?"

If only! -- they are the ones that are easy to discount (Deb Bourbeau is not going to try to call Donald Duck to see if he'll accept the position of town meeting member! :-)

The ones I'm more worried about are the ones where someone just marks the ballot randomly, or picks the first name in each list, or whatever. Thoughtless votes could swing elections -- would that really be better than the current system?
 

Posted by GGarrison - Thu, May 19, 2011, 8:56 P

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You either make things happen, watch what happens or wonder what happened.

Most of the American populace falls into the later category.
 

Posted by patrick - Thu, May 19, 2011, 8:09 A

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ALL precincts, including 1, should hang their head in shame. Having said that, I agree with Mike. Democracy includes, by necessity, the right to be an apathetic moron.
 

Posted by stew - Thu, May 19, 2011, 8:05 A

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Wish this was possible for all government elections! Down with the electoral college and our strangling two party system!
 

Posted by Clark - Thu, May 19, 2011, 12:17 A

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Mike: I think maybe it is time to change the voteing process here in Montague to non-partisan whereby there is no political party designation and people must get twenty five or fifty signatures to get on the ballot and run from there.
There haven't been any really competitive partisan elections in this town since 1999 and a half backed one in 2001 or 2002 and then none at all since then.
Lets move away from partisanship and encourage Good people to run no matter their affiliation.
I believe competition is a GOOD thing. I never ran with a FREE walk and I,m glad it worked out that way. I,ll tell you one thing-- it makes a person who runs office remember that not everyone agrees with them and I truly believe the winner IS MORE HUMBLE because of it !!!
Just looking for ways to have BETTER government !!! Clark
 

Posted by mik - Wed, May 18, 2011, 11:03 P

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So, are you saying that if it was a law that you HAD to vote, the extra 5300 votes would all have been either blank or for Donald Duck?

Sure, some people may throw in garbage, but I think if forced to vote people would make it worth their while.

Of course, the first thing to happen would be that they vote the person out who signed the bill into law!

Anyway, I wasn't completely serious. But it still pisses me off the laziness of our country. Consider what it took to get us away from England. Read "Founding Brothers" to get a good idea. Washington and Jefferson would be spinning in their graves.
 

Posted by MikeNaughton - Wed, May 18, 2011, 10:14 P

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"I would support a law that made it a federal requirement to vote ...."

I agree with the sentiment, but I have to disagree. You might be able to force people to vote, but you can't force people to vote intelligently, or even thoughtfully. Do you really want want a lot of disgruntled (because they're being forced) people marking ballots randomly and tossing them in the box?

As a vote counter, I've seen completely blank ballots turned in (for presidential elections -- why did they bother?). I've also seen votes for "Mickey Mouse" and "Donald Duck". Would it really be progress to have more ballots like these?
 

Posted by Clark - Wed, May 18, 2011, 7:24 P

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"Why not the government?" Because the GOVERNMENT SHOULD be above it !!!
 

Posted by Clark - Wed, May 18, 2011, 7:15 P

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Mik: I thought Liberals believed government did EVERYTHING best. There is HOPE if they believe ONLY some things !!!!
I never thought of myself as a Liberal but[ I ] do think SOME things are best left to the government. Gee--are we both in the middle ??? lol
 

Posted by mik - Wed, May 18, 2011, 6:49 P

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Ummm, no. I was just posting a history of Welfare in the country. It is commonly bantered about as a cheat for the lazy. How many people do you know that are on food stamps? I know a few. Without some form of welfare, this country would no longer be considered civilized. It would be akin to dumping your grandparents into the back alley with the sick child.

Yes, some people do game the system, but humans are humans, and there will always be someone trying to rip someone else off. Why not the government?
 

Posted by stash - Wed, May 18, 2011, 5:39 P

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If you say so my friend. What has THAT got to do with fining them. You saying they should get that FREE also. Food,rent,medical.education, cellphones. Ya ,why stop there.????????????????
 

Posted by mik - Wed, May 18, 2011, 5:11 P

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Welfare:

The welfare system in the United States began in the 1930s, during the Great Depression. After the Great Society legislation of the 1960s, for the first time a person who was not elderly or disabled could receive a living from the American government.[17] Aid could include general welfare payments, health care through Medicaid, food stamps, special payments for pregnant women and young mothers, and federal and state housing benefits.[17] In 1968, 4.1% of families were headed by a woman on welfare; by 1980, the percentage increased to 10%.[17] In the 1970s, California was the U.S. state with the most generous welfare system.[18] Virtually all food stamp costs are paid by the federal government.[19] In 2008, 28.7 percent of the households headed by single women were considered poor.[20]

Before the Welfare Reform Act of 1996, welfare was "once considered an open-ended right," but welfare reform converted it "into a finite program built to provide short-term cash assistance and steer people quickly into jobs."[21] Prior to reform, states were given "limitless"[21] money by the federal government, increasing per family on welfare, under the 60-year-old Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program.[22] This gave states no incentive to direct welfare funds to the neediest recipients or to encourage individuals to go off welfare (the state lost federal money when someone left the system).[23] Nationwide, one child in seven received AFDC funds,[22] which mostly went to single mothers.[19]

In 1996, under the Bill Clinton administration, Congress passed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, which gave control of the welfare system back to the states. Because welfare is no longer under the control of the federal government, there are basic requirements the states need to meet with regards to welfare services. Still, most states offer basic assistance, such as health care, food stamps, child care assistance, unemployment, cash aid, and housing assistance. After reforms, which President Clinton said would "end welfare as we know it,"[19] amounts from the federal government were given out in a flat rate per state based on population.[23] Each state must meet certain criteria to ensure recipients are being encouraged to work themselves out of welfare. The new program is called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF).[22] It encourages states to require some sort of employment search in exchange for providing funds to individuals, and imposes a five-year lifetime limit on cash assistance.[19][22][24] The bill restricts welfare from most legal immigrants and increased financial assistance for child care.[24] The federal government also maintains an emergency $2 billion TANF fund to assist states that may have rising unemployment.[22]

Following these changes, millions of people left the welfare rolls (a 60% drop overall),[24] employment rose, and the child poverty rate was reduced.[19] A 2007 Congressional Budget Office study found that incomes in affected families rose by 35%.[24] The reforms were "widely applauded"[25] after "bitter protest."[19] The Times called the reform "one of the few undisputed triumphs of American government in the past 20 years."[26] However, critics of the reforms sometimes point out that the massive decrease of people on the welfare rolls during the 1990s wasn't due to a rise in actual gainful employment in this population, but rather, was due almost exclusively to their offloading into workfare, giving them a different classification than classic welfare recipient. The late 1990s were also considered an unusually strong economic time, and critics voiced their concern about what would happen in an economic downturn.[19]

Aspects of the program vary in different states. Michigan, for example, requires recipients to spend a month in a job search program before benefits can begin.[19]

National Review editorialized that the Economic Stimulus Act of 2009 will reverse the welfare-to-work provisions that Bill Clinton signed in the 1990s, and will again base federal grants to states on the number of people signed up for welfare rather than at a flat rate.[23] One of the experts who worked on the 1996 bill said that the provisions would lead to the largest one-year increase in welfare spending in American history.[26] The House bill provides $4 billion to pay 80% of states' welfare caseloads.[22] Although each state received $16.5 billion annually from the federal government as welfare rolls dropped, they spent the rest of the block grant on other types of assistance rather than saving it for worse economic times.[21]

Eligibility for welfare depends on a variety of factors, including gross and net income, family size, and other circumstances like pregnancy, homelessness, unemployment, and medical conditions.

Welfare as a Capability

Welfare is a form of social protection, as it is concerned with overcoming adverse situations that affect needy individuals. Although social protection was establish to assist the working classes and to address transient poverty, it has come to encompass a greater variety of issues surrounding poverty.

The purpose of welfare is to assist individuals in need. The ultimate goal is to lift the welfare recipients out of poverty and make them self-sufficient. Séverine Deneulin and Lila Shahani [27] have termed this mode of development the human development and capability approach. The capability approach focuses on people and not simply on economic growth. While this approach still considers economic growth and macroeconomic stability, the aim is to “expand what people are able to do and be”.[27] This people-centered focus is “one that enables people to enjoy a healthy life, a good education, a meaningful job, physical safety, democratic debate and so on”.[27]

Amartya Sen argues that enhancing an individual’s capabilities results in the greater likelihood for individual success and society's success.[28] Enhancing freedoms is one means for development. Sen discusses “unfreedoms,” [28] which can include famine, lack of healthcare, and gender discrimination. In this regard, welfare provides individuals with the basic needs necessary to live a healthy life with the capability to enjoy the freedoms that are inherently available to all. Therefore, it is essential to note the importance of welfare for underprivileged individuals who need governmental assistance in the form of welfare.

Welfare Misperceptions

Welfare has come to be associated with poverty. More importantly, though, blacks have overwhelmingly dominated images of poverty over the last few decades.[29] This could be problematic because this view could creates unnecessary, and even damaging, opposition to welfare. As Martin Gilens, assistant professor of Political Science at Yale University, states, “white Americans with the most exaggerated misunderstandings of the racial composition of the poor are the most likely to oppose welfare”.[30] This perception possibly perpetuates negative racial stereotypes and could increase Americans’ opposition and racialization of welfare policies.[citation needed]

Welfare Disparities in Welfare Reform

Much research has shown that: “whites are leaving welfare faster than blacks; among those leaving, blacks are more likely to be forced off welfare; blacks are more likely to exhaust their time allowed on welfare; and blacks are more likely to cycle back onto welfare after having left".[31] Since the implementation of TANF, the percentages of black and Hispanic families have increased, while the percentage of white families has decreased. In 1992, blacks represented 37 percent of those on welfare; by 2002, this number increased slightly to 38 percent. In that same time period, the percentage of Hispanics rose from 18 percent to 25 percent. On the other hand, the percentage of whites on welfare decreased from 39 percent to 32 percent in that same time frame.[31]

Additionally, because TANF gave individual states increased flexibility in imposing time-limited welfare policies, the reforms implemented vary by state. Recent policy studies have found a statistically significant relationship between the racial makeup of a state’s welfare population and whether the state adopts tougher welfare policies. Aggressive get-tough reforms include full-family sanctions, short time limits, and family cap policies. Essentially, as the percentage of blacks in the welfare population rises, the probability that the state will adopt full-family sanctions increases from 54 to 97 percent; the probability that the state will adopt a family cap increases from 5 percent to 96 percent; and the probability that the state will adopt a shorter time limit than five years increases from 10 to 88 percent. Moreover, nonwhites are more likely to live in states with tougher policies.[31]

These changes since the implementation of TANF reinforce the misleading stereotype that welfare is a “black program,” as minorities are overrepresented and, in a way, punished for being on welfare. Still, there are more whites on welfare than any other race due to there being the overwelming majority in America and not the result of laziness.

Timeline

1880s-1890s: Attempts were made to move poor people from work yards to poor houses if they were in search of relief funds.

1893-1894: Attempts were made at the first unemployment payments, but were unsuccessful due to the 1893-1894 recession.

1932: The Great Depression had gotten worse and the first attempts to fund relief failed. The “Emergency Relief Act”, which gave local governments $300 million, was passed into law.

1933: In March 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt pushed Congress to establish the Civilian Conservation Corps.

1935: The Social Security Act was passed on June 17, 1935. The bill included direct relief (cash, food stamps, etc.) and changes for unemployment insurance.

1940: Aid to Families With Dependent Children (AFDC) was established.

1964: Johnson’s War on Poverty is underway, and the Economic Opportunity Act was passed. Commonly known as “the Great Society”

1996: Passed under Clinton, the “Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996” becomes law.
 

Posted by stash - Wed, May 18, 2011, 4:42 P

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Sounds good. Add to tax bills and deduct from welfare. The last one would boost turnout a bunch I'm sure. And for us old pharts deduct from Soc. Sec. check.. Better yet can't renew drivers lic or registration or ltc....................HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
 

Posted by mik - Wed, May 18, 2011, 4:06 P

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I know. It's absolutely pathetic. People harangue and bluster all the time about Patriotism... but when it comes time to take three minutes out of our day to do the ONE thing that makes us different from all the other non-democratic countries on earth, 92% of Montague thought it was too much trouble.

Make sense out of that.

I would support a law that made it a federal requirement to vote, and if you failed to do it on an election day you would be fined $50. Yes, I'm a liberal who thinks some things are best left to the government. I feel very strongly that if people are dieing in wars for our freedom to vote, it should be a personal obligation to do it.
 

Posted by stash - Wed, May 18, 2011, 3:58 P

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Prec.2 hang your heads in shame...Kudos prec.1 Most votes as usual. Prec 2 deserves to get chopped. Then you'll hear the crabbing. Thanx for posting the info Mr. Mik Sir..........................................
 

Posted by mik - Wed, May 18, 2011, 1:34 P

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More details on Monday's election. Special thanks to Deb Bourbeau for sending me the info.

http://www.montaguem...?gpt=34&g=201&ID=298
 

Posted by MontagueReporter - Mon, May 16, 2011, 11:02 P

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Sandy Brown of Gill cruised to an easy victory on the Gill-Montague school committee, the only race on the ballot in the annual town elections in Gill and Montague today.

Brown, a former member of the Gill-Montague school committee, faced Patricia Crosby, also a former member and former school committee chair, for an open Gill seat. Brown won that race 439 – 180, sweeping all six precincts of Montague and also winning in Gill.
The contest may have turned on the two candidates’ differing statements in the May 3rd debate broadcast on MCTV, when Brown offered unqualified support for the recent budget compact arrived at between the towns, the school district and the state, while Crosby said, “The starting point is not what the towns can afford, it’s the quality of education we want our children to have.”
Tonight, Brown reacted to her win saying, “Thanks to all the voters for such great support. I will work for educational excellence, and to raise the bar and challenge every student with higher expectations.”
Brown will take her seat amid administrative upheaval at the district, as superintendent Carl Ladd announced his resignation late last week, after two years at the helm of the GMRSD.

Ladd recently accepted the resignation of Montague Elementary School principal Elizabeth Musgrave, who cited “irreconcilable differences with the superintendent” in stepping down.

Ladd also terminated former Hillcrest Elementary School principal Christine Jutres’ position, along with the administrative posts occupied by former TFHS principal Jeff Kenney and elementary curriculum coordinator Chip Wood, even as he works to hire a replacement for retiring Gill Elementary principal Rita Detweiler, leaving Turners High principal Donna Fitzpatrick nearly alone among top district administrators continuing in position heading into the next school year.