The controversial Timberlane Budget Committee meeting of Dec. 11 is now up on Vimeo and is linked at the end of this post.
In case you don’t have time to watch the 4.5 hour meeting, I’ll be posting video clips from the meeting over the next few days. Please check this blog daily and don’t forget to scroll down a few postings because I am now blogging two or three times a day and each new posting pushes the previous one off the screen.
Today’s video clip shows Mr. Green reading a prepared statement for why he can’t support the budget. Among his reasoned and factual criticisms was that the costs of closing the school and moving programs was not produced so that projected savings may not actually materialize. Mr. Grosky tried to cut Arthur off and then afterwards rudely criticized him for being insulting and “grandstanding.” Chairman Grosky then took considerable time to grandstand himself, railing against Mr. Green in two minutes of exquisite hypocrisy in which Mr. Grosky did exactly what he had falsely accused Mr. Green of doing. Sadly, this exchange highlights the pervasive disrespect that the chairman of the Timberlane Budget Committee holds for an extraordinarily hardworking budget committee member from Sandown. Watch it for yourself if you think I am rushing to an unkind judgment. Then, please also watch the detailed presentation Mr. Green made at the Sandown Town Hall on Dec. 7th where he argued to a good sized crowd that the district is profoundly overstaffed.
By the way, Mr. Green’s warning that the claimed savings from closing Sandown Central might be illusory proved to be prescient. Within the next business day, the district posted a new budget draft showing substantial costs associated with making Sandown North ready to absorb the move from Central.
Please remember when you watch these videos that Mr. Green – unlike school board member from Danville, Rob Collins – does not have the benefit of the SAU supporting his research. In fact, they make him pay for public financial information. His commitment to his office is evident from the amount of information and the quality of his statistical analysis.
Arthur Green Reads, Jason Grosky Responds
Arthur Green shows comparable school districts and how Timberlane is overstaffed. Sandown Town Hall Meeting, Dec. 7, 2014
Timberlane Budget Committee meeting in full, Dec. 11, 2014
timberlaneandsandown 
Where in blazes do these idiots come from?! I simply can’t fathom so many collecting in a single place. Perhaps we have a fruit fly analog here. Remove the fruit and they buzz off. And what’s the fruit? Why $68 Million, of course.
Some gems:
“To sit here and criticize and not put forward an alternative is disingenuous” states the arm-folded, rotund chair who has clearly never missed a meal.
Disingenuous means “not candid or sincere”. I can’t find anything in Mr. Green’s statement that is lacking candor or sincerity. And the link between “sit here and criticize” and allegedly failing to “put forward an alternative” has no relation to the claim of being disingenuous. It does, in the body language and arrogant tone of the chair, have relation in going along to get along.
“It is a shame that this committee, at times, becomes a point to grandstand”.
What, precisely, is this English major suggesting? I can’t fathom his point. He might work upon clarity, but my guess is the tools are simply not there.
“and cast aspersions on others”.
In the religious line, casting an aspersion is rather nice. A sprinkling of the holy water.
Actually Mr. Green spoke of poor “Administration” performance and challenged the Committee to do its job. If the chair wants aspersions (as in attacking the reputation or integrity of others) he already managed to do this job rather nicely by opening his self-important trap.
At the end we hear the operable phrase, “I don’t think”. It is repeated throughout. And therein is the primary message.
With fodder like this, one could grow some marvelous fruit. Unfortunately, it will be inedible.
I simply cannot listen to the rest. It’s physically painful. Four hours of the same would send me to a locked unit.
Please work to throw this one to the fishes. What a piece of work!!