The Eisenthal Report

What a week!

This has been quite a week - in this country's politics and for me, personally.

Sen. Barack Obama officially became the Presidential nominee of the Democratic Party - the first African-American to win this in history. The vote making Obama the nominee - and Obama's speech accepting the nomination - occurred on historic anniversaries.

The Democratic National Convention voted the nomination of Sen. Obama on Wednesday, August 27, which was the centennial of the birth of President Lyndon Baines Johnson. Given President Johnson's role in promoting civil rights in the 1960s, there is much poetic justice in this conjunction of the two events.

As many observers have noted, yesterday was the 45th anniversary of the March on Washington, when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his "I have a Dream" speech. Again, the confluence of Dr. King's speech and Sen. Obama's seems to this observer to be quite auspicious.

For me personally, I helped build a playground this past Sunday - and got to comment on this on television.

This was before I got very sore and sunburned.

I was also quite active in West Brookfield affairs. Replacement of a key bridge in West Brookfield got attention in both the Worcester Telegram and Gazette and the Spencer New Leader. My colleagues and I on the Board of Selectmen expressed our concerns about the apparent refusal of CSX, which owns the rail that runs under the bridge, to allow a grade-level crossing adjacent to the bridge. Without this nearby detour, while the bridge is closed for as much as two months, traffic would be detoured 7 to 9 miles through the neighboring towns of Brookfield and Warren - a prospect that poses safety, economic, and quality of life issues for the residents of West Brookfield.

My colleagues and I also expressed our concerns about the count of West Brookfield students attending the Quaboag Regional School District. The residency of 45 students, previously identified as West Brookfield residents, has been called into question. This is a matter that needs to be resolved before the official school census is done on October 1.

Items that haven't yet been covered in the newspaper include our efforts to expand long-range financial forecasting for the Town of West Brookfield - and the effects of a decision by the state Department of Revenue not to allow the Town to maintain a "fleet account." This is an account into which the Town Meeting appropriates funds for the purpose of acquiring vehicles and other rolling stock for Town departments. The Board of Selectmen and the Advisory Committee have been making decisions on specific vehicle purchases.

I have felt that this approach circumvents the legislative process. Town Meeting is the legislative body in West Brookfield - and should be the body that decides major capital purchases. However, I am not happy about the way in which this change was made. I had hoped that a more comprehensive capital planning process would be in place before anything was done to the "fleet account."

Finally, I had the opportunity to attend the annual meeting of the Lake Wickaboag Preservation Association - and to speak to the meeting. Lake Wickaboag is a "great pond" of about 400 acres located in the center of West Brookfield. It really is one of the gems of our area. I grew up in a community that has a similar lake - I'm happy to support efforts to maintain Lake Wickaboag.

New Prediction Market - Kerry vs. O'Reilly

I have created a new prediction market on the Inkling platform.

For those of you not familiar with prediction markets, these are Internet platforms that attempt to arrive at consensus predictions of future events. They function like stock or bond markets. An "investor" can "buy" stock in a given event if he or she believes it likely to happen - or can "sell it short" if he or she believes it unlikely to happen. Last year, I ran a prediction market on the special primary election in the Massachusetts Fifth Congressional District; this market got some attention as I recall - with one candidate even linking to the market - urging supporters to buy shares.

My new market concerns the September 16 Democratic Senatorial primary here in Massachusetts between Sen. John Kerry and Gloucester lawyer Edward O'Reilly. In the few days that the market has been up, Sen. Kerry has raced out to an overwhelming lead - a 95.06% chance of victory.

As the administrator of the market, I cannot participate in it. However, I can share my thought that while Sen. Kerry is quite likely to win, I'm not sure about a 95% probability. After all, Ed O'Reilly wasn't even supposed to be on the ballot. In order to be on the ballot, both candidates needed the votes of at least 15 percent of the delegates to this year's Democratic State Convention in June. Sen. Kerry's campaign went to considerable efforts to deny O'Reilly his 15 percent vote. However, when all the votes were counted at the convention, Sen. Kerry had 78 percent and Ed O'Reilly had 22 percent of the delegates - Kerry won the convention's endorsement, but O'Reilly was on the September ballot. (For the record, I was a delegate to the convention - and I voted for Sen. Kerry.)

Another observation is that - at least out here in the woods - I am seeing a lot of O'Reilly signs.

I do think that Sen. Kerry will win renomination - I'm just not 95 percent sure.

A Boat, A Still, and Beavers

Friends,

It is well past July 1 and I am still contemplating the future of The Eisenthal Report. I announced a hiatus in May shortly after I was elected to the West Brookfield Board of Selectmen. I thought I would be able to make a decision about the future of TER by July 1 - that hasn't happened. I'm still thinking...

While I think about this - at the behest of a respected reader - I've decided to share some of my impressions of life as a Selectman in the Town of West Brookfield.

I have enjoyed my service so far on the Board of Selectmen. My fellow board members - Barry Nadon, Jr. and Tom Long - are civil, dedicated, and public-spirited. We do not agree on all of the issues, but there is a common dedication to the best interests of the Town of West Brookfield.

We have dealt with important issues, such as the final resolution of the budget of the Quaboag Regional School District - to which West Brookfield belongs. Budgetary issues are only going to become more intense in the coming months and years. I feel that I'm beginning to apply my expertise and experience in this area in a concrete way to this set of issues.

We have also dealt with more offbeat issues - which brings me to the title of this piece.

The boat is an abandoned boat that someone left on the side of one of our rural roads. It kind of looks like the S.S. Minnow, sitting there by the side of the road. It is certainly a nuisance at this point - and it could become a hazard. It's been attracting trash - including a full patio set. The Board of Selectmen is going to need to keep tabs on the boat until it is disposed of.

The still is a 1,000 gallon distillation unit - built in the 1970s with money from the federal government for the purpose of producing ethanol for fuel. Not long after I was elected, one of the people involved with this project contacted me. He informed me that under the terms of the federal grant the Town of West Brookfield has an ownership interest in the unit. I began investigating this - I still haven't turned up the grant documents - but I did invite a professor at Worcester Polytechnic Institute's Alternative Fuels Project to come to West Brookfield. One Saturday afternoon in June, we went to visit the still. This was an impressive looking machine; it wasn't clear, however, how long it had been since the still had been fired up - or whether it would now operate. At this point, we need to determine what the Town's interest is in this unit before we discuss any investment of time or money in making it operational again.

The beavers are a colony of beavers that have dammed a stream close to one of our roads. Recently, the Board of Selectmen met jointly with the Board of Health to discuss the situation. It is the latter board's responsibility to deal directly with the beavers. However, the Selectmen got involved because of the threat to the road and nearby culverts. The issue is somewhat complicated and sensitive - particularly for the Board of Health. Under Massachusetts law, they can authorize trapping - but not killing - of the beavers. Also, since the beavers are partly on private property, the BOH needs the cooperation of private property owners. This situation is still developing...stay tuned...

The boat, the still, and the beavers are representative of the kind of ground-level, nitty-gritty issues that local officials deal with. I was elected because I talked a lot about finance and personnel issues; I will have plenty of opportunity to address these issues, but the other kinds of issues will take up a good part of my focus. Fortunately, I'm finding both the big picture and nitty-gritty issues to quite engaging and interesting. It will be an interesting three years...