I'm Katie Wilson and I'm running for the 3 year position for Town Meeting Rep in district 2.
I am fiscally conservative, but at the same time believe that the government is responsible for providing services for the common good. Research and due diligence are important to me, and if elected I will take that part of the process seriously.
Authored by: Kathy Urffer on Monday, March 02 2009 @ 08:13 PM GMT+4
I just wanted to throw my support behind Katie. She is immensely organized and thoroughly researches decisions. We work together at Marlboro College Graduate School and I think she would make a great town meeting representative. She is fair, thoughtful and even tempered. Please support her tomorrow at our polling place.
Authored by: marlboromba on Monday, March 02 2009 @ 08:17 PM GMT+4
Hi Tad,
Thanks for writing. To me being fiscally conservative means that I am careful with money, whether it is mine or someone else's. It means that you don't spend needlessly, but at the same time, you do not ignore big expenditure for something essential just because of its size.
Take the new waste water treatment plant. It obviously needs to be replaced, not only has it lasted its intended life-cycle, but the town has had to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to repair it whenever there are problems. (And let's face it, in the nearer rather than later future, it's likely to have a problem that is not easily fixed). While many of us just think of waste water treatment facilities as a place our water goes to get cleaned, there are actually a number of opportunities to created a value-added component through electric generation, heat capture and other technical things. These marketable products could be sold and help keep the operational costs down during the life of the new plant. The price tag put forward so far is pretty high, but the engineers are working on lowering it. Part of being fiscally conservative would be comparing upfront costs of the integrating of these technologies with the long term benefits of lower overall cost during the plant's life-cycle.
The issues isn't on the agenda yet, but I thought it a good illustration of my thinking.
Authored by: marlboromba on Tuesday, March 03 2009 @ 10:04 PM GMT+4
Hi all,
I just wanted to thank everyone who voted for me- I won the position. I look forward to serving. Please do check back to http://katiejwilson.wordpress.com for updates and analysis of the town budget and other issues coming forward to town meeting.
I used to know what a 'fiscal conservative' was, but don't any more. Could you explain how you interpret the term?
Good luck tomorrow. The town could definitely use your skills.