School district embraces the free market in Internet service

In today's Free Press, there's an article about the Burlingon School District ditching the Burlington Telecom service for a faster & more affordable service, but get this: for the same price, they would be getting 5 times the speed of service from the main provider that they already receive!

Kudos to the school district for taking initiative on this & saving some of our taxpayer money!

Burlington School District switches Internet provider service from Burlington Telecom

Free Press now has a political blog!

Yeah, I know, been slacking on the blog entries; but hey, ya gotta enjoy what summer we have while it's here :-)

Here's a snippet of local political news...

A repost from PoliticsVT's Blog from 6/24:

It looks like the Burlington Free Press has caught on to the power of blogging!

Nancy Remsen, Sam Hemingway and Terri Hallenbeck, which make up the Free Press' political reporting staff across the state have started a blog (with permission from the Free Press) to focus on all things political in this Campaign '06.

Even though the Free Press threatened to sue us, we thought as a jesture of good will between our little blog and the Garnett News System -- we will post Nany and Terri's blog on our short list of PoliticsVT approved sites. Some of you may not know, but it takes a lot to get on PoliticsVT's approved site list. Sites need to demonstrate a dedication to informing the public, provide good information for the public and be operated with fairness for all political beliefs.

Terri, Nancy and Sam are very strong journalists and are noted for their solid understanding on politics and government. We're glad that they started a blog. Way to go!

Click here, to go to VT Buzz.

Burlington Taxpayer Protest at Monday's City Council meeting

Image by Citizens for Limited Taxation

Tom Licata, former candidate for City Council in Ward 6, is organizing
a Taxpayer protest during the Monday's City Council meeting, 7PM City
Hall's Contois Auditorium.

Here is a recent letter to the editor of the Free
Press from Tom:
(Titles for the letters are usually determined by the Free Press)

Kiss should keep focus local

Memo to Burlington Mayor Bob Kiss: It appears you are restless and in
search of a problem to solve. Rather than taking on the gun lobby or
finding "solidarity" with illegal immigrants, stay closer to home and
find solidarity with an oppressed group of Burlington taxpayers.

You know, I've never heard of a city or state that has been taxed into
prosperity. Have you? Rather than having taxpayers continue to
shoulder an unfair burden of their tax dollars supporting
dysfunctional government processes, you could start with consolidating
city services through an efficiency and effectiveness study. Then,
move on to building a five-, 10- and 20-year economic growth strategy
for our waterfront (hint: over time, tax revenues are determined by
economic and productivity growth). For "peace-of-mind," our citizens
deserve to have more certainty over their future tax increases. A
"Taxpayer's Bill of Rights," which would limit tax increases to no
more than inflation, would force you to set spending priorities the
way that families and businesses do, and would require government to
live within its means.

Lastly, although you and many in your City Council may derive
vicarious gratification from supporting our city's public sector and
teacher unions with generous and unaffordable benefits and pay
packages, it's time to stop these indulgences. It's time to stop
living in an ideological dream world, and begin the heavy lifting
required to get this city back on track. Be restless no more!
TOM LICATA
Burlington

Tom also has some flyers about this issue to hand out to your
neighbors, to reach Tom: 658 8624

Brief update to the 'Sanctuary City" issue

For those that missed the Wednesday's (5/31) Ch. 3 6 o'clock news, there was a brief mention of City Attorney McNeil's findings about the proposed Sanctuary City. Here's the text from the segment:

Burlington's Attorney has completed his research into how the city can become a sanctuary for illegal immigrants. Mayor Bob Kiss suggested the move earlier this month at an immigration rally as a way for illegal aliens to reside in Burlington without fear of deportation. City Attorney Joe McNeil says his research into the legal issues indicate the criminal laws must be enforced -- but the civil laws regarding immigration issues are more complicated. ((tape 310 tc 11:34 Joseph McNeil/Burlingtonj City Attorney:"There'll be no recommendation from the City Attorney's Office that would involve anything less than full enforcement of our criminal laws. And with regard to the civil statutes there's a great deal of policy discussion that will have to take place between the research that we found and any implementation. So it's months away.")) McNeil says he looked at 58 communities in 20 states that currently offer some kind of sanctuary benefit to illegal aliens.

So far, there's no mention of this issue on the agenda for Monday's City Council meeting, so we'll see if there will be an amendment to the agenda, or if there are comments during Public Forum (7:30 time certain for those interested in speaking).