Last-Minute Library Spinning

The City Council, if you haven't heard, decide what to do with library funding tonight, and at least two city councilors are discussing the issue somewhat publicly in the last few hours.

I'm guessing most folks are already reading the Fitchburg Hometown e-mail string (if you're not the list, you might want to be. It's a worthy inbox filler), but if you haven't, here goes:

Councilor Ted DeSalvatore chimed in this morning (9:19 a.m. according to Outlook) with the following:

To all concerned,
The library budget/funding information is not
complete.

City Council has no intension of hurting the library in
any way. Our job is to balance the City Budget. We have taken the initiative to
reduce all pay raises to the 2007 mark throughout the city in hopes to recoup a
$760,000 deficit. Doing that, (according to the director of the Fitchburg Public
Library), will reduce the overall monies to a level that would cause the loss of
certification, so our recommendation to the mayor would be to place the
difference into the heating oil account or some other place within that
department. This is in the name of fairness. We will not allow it to return to
pay raises, and I believe we will protest any additional areas, that do not
serve the City’s immediate needs but in the end, the final decision will be in
the Mayor’s lap.

Council can only reduce, eliminate, recommend and
reject, we cannot add anything to the budget. Therefore, with that said, once
council finishes cutting, the rest of the math is up to the Mayor. I would
suggest, in light of all the efforts to encourage City Council to keep the
funding, the same effort be extended to the mayor in seeing to it that the
necessary monies are reallocated to the heating oil or like line items, keeping
the funding level where it needs to be, and retaining the certification we all
desire.

I hope that I have stated this clearly enough, however if
you should have any further questions, please feel free to contact me
directly.

I should add, this is my personal perspective, and
believe most councilors feel the same way, however, any councilors that feel
they have a different take on this, should be encouraged to respond with their
thoughts as well.

Thank you,
Ted

City
Councillor
Ted E. DeSalvatore
Tel (978) 343-4174
Cell(978)
502-9432
vincit qui se vincit

This afternoon (4:42 according to Outlook), Dean Tran chimed in with the following:

Hello,
Ward 4 Councilor DeSalvatore's views are solely his own. I would ask
any
and all concern residents to contact each individual city councilors
and
discuss the matter. Furthermore, the City Council President, Jody
Joseph,
is the only authorized individual to speak on behalf of the City
Council as
a whole.


Sincerely,
Dean A.
Tran
City Councilor
at-large
http://www.ci.fitchburg.ma.us
http://www.deantran.net

So, there you go. Not sure what will happen, exactly, tonight, but the council seems to be taking this pretty seriously.

By the way, not sure if there are any Latin scholars in the room, but according to a quick google search, "vincit qui se vincit," which DeSalvatore uses to sign his e-mails, translates to "He conquers who conquers himself." So there you go.