After 3+ years of chronicling Woodstock ‘town governance’ and its silliness, I am setting down the pen and moving on to other things.

Woodstock as well as the State is in a bad place and we haven't seen the worst of it yet. The citizens of Woodstock and Connecticut have no one to blame but themselves. Blithely sitting by and failing to take action, is, and will continue to be not in your interest or that of your children. It will never cease to amaze me what the general public is unwilling to understand and is willing to accept without question.

The Woodstock Public Schools which years ago showed promise have deteriorated to mediocre at best, failing students on both ends of the spectrum in a continuing year over year slide on more and more money and declining enrollment, all of which are statewide issues. But the PR campaign here has risen to great heights in leading you to believe otherwise while protecting the less than mediocre administrators who should have retired years ago and continue to be vastly overpaid while mismanaging bloated and fraudulent budgets derived by hook or crook in combination with a board of education that is too large, with terms that are too long, that is entirely dysfunctional, and carries a legal budget that is the toast of Hartford. Then of course we have the blog of hateful idiots John and Becki Leavitt, cheerleading all the way despite the facts and attacking on command anyone who is brave enough to dare utter a word to the contrary. There hasn’t been a speck of truth published there since its inception, but there is your BOE gleefully supporting such nonsense in order to deflect their own failings- how noble.  This level of dysfunction is mirrored in the shambles that is the state department of education as well, but at least McQuillan had the decency to resign.

Speaking of dysfunctional, well prior to the presentation of the budgets, I read with great amusement, an article in the Villager wherein Allan Walker was asked about the upcoming budget issues and how they might affect Woodstock. What followed disguised as an answer to this direct question was a rambling diatribe about how great the new Town Garage is. I will assume for the sake of discussion that you drove the roads of Woodstock after this year’s snows- they looked like a war zone. In contrast, the state roads, 169, 197, etc., were near perfect within hours after the storms- but you have a $3M+ palace designed around vastly outdated technology to admire, and the bill is coming despite what they tell you.

Meanwhile at Town Hall, that bustling bastion of Woodstock commerce, where it now appears that assistants are required at every level presumably to keep your elected officials company or handle their duties while they play Farmville on Facebook. Think I’m kidding? Have a look for yourself- eerily similar to our state legislators playing solitaire while conducting business which was revealed last year.

The dysfunction continues with the board of finance- you know, the folks that are in charge of the $20M+ and growing that you hand them every year and are supposed to keep spending in check, instead blatantly skirting and then covering up obvious violations of the spending ordinance to the tune of millions of dollars in over taxation, and when questioned in an open meeting said: “If you don’t like it, sue us!”.  Prior to his whitewash in 'investigating' this fiasco with Cass and Cabana, we were treated to the immortal words of George McCoy: “We’ll worry about next year next year”.  Earth to George: Next year has arrived.

Meanwhile, Glenn Converse, presumably the next chair of the BOF, gets his panties in a twist if anyone dares ask a question and reads from Robert’s Rules rather than engaging with the public to address the next wave of deficits that will be unavoidable, because no matter what Dannel is promising everyone with his delusional proposals to fix the state budget hole while quietly trying to legislate an escape hatch, it becomes abundantly clear that the short end of the stick is headed up your nose among other orifices.

The Woodstock budget just snuck by, apparently because no one was really paying attention even with the BOE continuing to threaten parents with 'cuts' and whining the same old refrain of having to preserve ‘services’ and ‘it’s for the children’; unfortunately, the administration and BOE could care less about the children evidenced by the ongoing lack of urgency in addressing anything meaningful. Some would say nothing new there and they’d be right. What is new is that the economy has changed for some time to come- perhaps for the remainder of our lifetimes, but the status-quo remains here at any cost. What’s important? God forbid we deface dirt roads with 'foreign' materials. The priorities here are just too stupid for words.

What should be evident to anyone with a brain? Pretty buildings and platitudes don’t make a community. Just take a look around and really pay attention to what your ‘leaders’ say and then do or don’t do- then ask yourself this: Do my family and I deserve better than this? I am quite certain that we do, but only you know for sure.

I have no doubt that I will be fully entertained while I continue to watch the comic tragedy that is Woodstock and the State of Connecticut from the sidelines for exactly 13 more months.  

Despite all comments being closed, woodstocktruth and the Coalition site will remain for anyone interested in the vast amount of irrefutable data contained therein for as long as there is an internet- my gift to you.

-Craig R. Powers