BUT on a larger scale ALL of you should be concern with what is happening in Washington. Go to this site and learn more….

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20110801006728/en/Ron-Paul-Issues-Statement-Debt-Ceiling-Deal

In addition, as observed in a few of the past town hall meetings, it is apparent many of the Evans Town Officials on the board have served for way too long.

I will get to the numbers later but first I would like to say that I too am a fiscal hawk and I too am sickened of the reckless spending of government at ALL levels. One thing I would say here is let’s look at where we, the town, would like to be. What I mean by this is if we want to be a small town with less growth than let’s benchmark what those towns are doing and do it. Conversely if we want to be a bigger positive growth town like Hamburg or Orchard Park than I say we benchmark their progressions.

The fact remains however that we don’t have a Ralph Wilson Stadium and the incentive (close to work) for football talent to reside in our town. Hamburg and Orchard Park have those things which in turn created the allure of living out there next to these football folks. But they not only had that, it had also given these towns some unsolicited recognition, marketing, branding. Everything that is important to attracting business. This falls into the easy sell category.

What does all of this have to do with your percentages? Again, I fall back to the benchmarking of the growing towns. We need to attract business anyway possible and since we don’t have a Stadium we need to up our “curb appeal”. The term so famously used by realtors and the DIY network. What goes into this on a town level can be interpreted in different ways however I would say the 3 constants are infrastructure, public safety and schools. Businesses look at these numbers, first glance, for their own benefit and for those of their current and future employees. Why? Because they in-turn use it as a selling point to them (employees) and to attract better talent. However, for arguments sake (not malicious) I will focus on the police/public safety as this is what you wrote about.

Public safety should be interpreted as such. The question that people ask themselves when looking at homes are is how safe is my family and personal property going to be?
A well maintained police force is paramount in that regard. There are too many websites now that have the statistical information readily available for prospective buyers and businesses. I, as I’m sure many of you, would not purchase a house let alone get out to look at it if your initial perception (visual) right. We could let our current force go to hell which in turn would make the town go to hell at which point the blogs would be a little different. Don’t believe me? Go ask other areas that are rampant with crime. Go see how their abandon homes are holding up. Better yet be the advocate for those areas and try and attract a small business. Not an “easy sell”.

The current year budget is not so far off from last year’s budget…so little in fact that it equates to only + $65,056 for the salaried employees, 29 in total. Where this extra money goes to or how the breakdown works is anyone’s guess but again, for arguments sake let’s assume it goes to all 29 full timers from Chief to Patrol. It roughly equates to .51 cents per hour extra. Not a lot to throw anybody into the proverbial fire.

Our numbers as a town are not too far apart from those towns referred to above. We all fall into the $100 + range per citizen. We also have a seasonal spike for Angola on the Lake that is not included in these numbers so in actuality we are lower than the norm.

I was going to add that I wasted my lunch finding, dissecting and finally writing this response but I look at it as more like a learning experience. Life I always say is a never ending process of learning…and teaching.

Sincerely,

David Farinacci

The only way to fix this is to require public employees to obey / follow the law / codes or if found guilty in court – they pay legal costs – not taxpayers.