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Library Board Hijacked the Town Budget
To the Editor:
Well here it is April 20, 2007 and the Julia L Butterfield Library and the Town of Philipstown are going to court sometime soon, basically to determine if the Towns' budget is for the town Board to manage, or will the Butterfield Library Board determine what your town taxes will be forever.
Fortunately this week I purchased the Putnam County News and Recorder. I found that the Library Board bought a full page to communicate their position as to why the Philipstown tax paying public should allow them to fill the Library coffers with town taxpayers funds forever. I thought great, now maybe more taxpayers would better understand the "obscure law" the Library Board chose as its method to "hijack" the Town budget.
Now certainly there is nothing illegal about using this state law to secure Town of Philipstown's tax dollars for library purposes, that's the law's intent. But, they chose to do it sneaky and underhanded, by not informing ALL of the affected taxpayers. They chose to hijack Philipstown's 2007 budget with a small notice in the Putnam County News and Recorder and another Putnam County paper from Carmel! But when it came time to rationalize their actions, after the fact, they chose a full page ad in the PCNR (April 18 2007). Folks the horse is gone…too late now, perhaps the court will have ruled by the time you read this, perhaps giving our tax dollars to the library and the lawyers (oh how the lawyers must love us!).
You see in my world, and most others I'm sure, "Good Government" says you open everything to the public when you want them to give you their money.
The Library board should have sent a letter to every resident in the defined area (communication, that's the part of law they should have followed more closely). You don't wait until you have to defend your actions to come clean!
That's where the Library made their mistake, and people in Philipstown are mad and disappointed. You know when you ask someone for something, and they offer it to you, two people walk away happy; when you take it without asking, for sure, only one person is happy, and maybe not then!
Ken Gonsalves Continental Village
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