Bob Greenberger

Apparently the Democrats caucus from 7-8 prior to the actual meeting. Uh, no, I had no clue. So, rather than having an hour at home before the meeting, I had less than 10 minutes. No problem! Grabbed pizza for dinner from the pizzeria at the train station (since I still serve on the Parking Authority, I’m effectively the pizzeria’s landlord so checking on them is still doing my public duty and yes, I paid for the slices), rushed to the house, dropped off stuff, laid out clothes for today (to avoid making excess noise in case things ran late and didn’t want to disturb Deb), grabbed the minutes and flew back out the door.

Made the caucus only 5 minutes late but fortunately it hadn’t started. We heard form the various committees so we had a sense of their positions on the issues on the agenda, discussed a plan of attack and worked through the agenda. And small town politics intruded so something as simple as whether or not to accept a parcel of land in lieu of paying back taxes on it turned into a 30 minute debate that was fairly circular.

Finally, at 8, I entered the All Purpose Room and took my seat among my fellow RTM reps. Just before things began, I learned the Committee on Committees (no kidding) met and placed me on the Finance Committee (which is a disaster sure to happen). I made sure to place myself between two people I knew well so they could guide me along. During the Roll Call, my district leader introduced me to the body and I got a nice round of applause.

Our Congressional Representative, Chris Shays, was among us to lead us in the Pledge and say a few words. Connecticut’s District 4 congressional race last November was tougher than expected on him and served as a wake up call so he’s being very public right about now. Fortunately, he was brief.

Would that the rest of the night stayed that way.

We briskly moved through a few items and then bogged down in one that gobbled up lots of time. Effectively, our town, despite building a new elementary and a new high school still uses some 56 portable classrooms around town. The Board came to us looking for an unbudgeted $310,000 to relocate three portables from the high school, which would be done needing them in June, to an elementary school that was in desperate need for space. The problem was we were being told we had to vote last night because any delay would upset the careful timetables for the schools and the contractors. The RTM was duly outraged at this being an off-budget item when they knew the high school portables were done by June, plus enrollment projects existed back in October showing where the needs would be. The entire Board of Ed, the Superintendent and her lackeys were all there and got publicly spanked for lack of planning, resorting to this “you must act now” tactic one time too many and the like.

And as I feared, people repeated themselves, people appeared not to have heard previous statements so repeated questions, school officials avoided directly answering pointed questions – all the stuff I thought would really piss me off. I admit I was getting annoyed, at some of my new brethren as well as the officials.

Fortunately, I bit my tongue and listened this first go-round. Afterwards, when we finally adjourned around 11, a colleague said I should join them. Join them? At 11 on a school night? Apparently, the democrats unwind at a local watering hole so I went along, hoping to get to know some of these folk a bit better. And that was pleasant. Got home around 11:45 and will suffer for it as the day progresses.

As of now, 3 of my 4 Mondays are now spoken for: 1st Monday of the month: Democratic Town Committee; 3rd Monday of the month: Finance Committee, 4th Monday of the month: RTM. Sheesh.