It's Over the Rainbow, searching for that pot of gold

Summary Paragraph: In which Menin muses about Halloween on Lime Street, and matters municipal.

Although Lime Street has, for years, been the place to be on Halloween, we might have slipped slightly as Marlboro Street drew Harry Potter fans from across the City with what I hear was an astonishing recreation of scenes and characters from the series of Potter books and movies.

Our next door neighbors, the Lofaro's, have put on a haunted house for going on 20 years now. Their vestibule is black-lit, and they dress up; the house is draped with Mummies and coffins, and many RIP tombstones (thankfully, they removed my Menin for School Committee scene so it wouldn't languish amidst the headstones- it will be back tomorrow).

The last three years, we've averaged about 450 trick or treaters; tonight, I lost count after 480- they came in waves. We see a lot of neighbors; and a lot of people who don't live here, as well. Families from Salisbury, Seabrook, Haverhill, Boxford, West Newbury ring the doorbells and shout "trick or treat". It is really wonderful, in a way- to have our neighborhood be a destination for families that want their kids to trick or treat safely, in a place where they are welcomed.

There was a very heavy police presence along Lime Street tonight. I spent some time talking with a cop I've known for years, some about the GIC, some about other things. Although I am deeply disappointed about the decision not to go with GIC, I can appreciate the point that it was a lot to ask and a short time to consider it. I think that happened partially by legislative design, ("see, they never really wanted it anyway"); enacting legislation in July, promulgating regulations in August, and closing the door (originally) on September 30, with a 30 day notice to required to pull together a meeting of union reps to discuss the issue. But until I am convinced otherwise by getting direct answers to the questions I raised in my previous post, something that was noticeably absent from the Daily New Article today, I have to question how it was handled once the City was responsible for getting it done.

But the conversation with the cop was also very interesting in another way, and confirmed much of what I have been saying in this campaign. You cannot deal with the school funding crisis in isolation; you must deal with the entire way the City, the municipality, does it's business. Opportunities to get the kind of efficiencies and savings from other Department budgets that we have gotten from the schools exist, and in some cases are obvious; what we lack is the political will and leadership to get it done.

The municipal budgeting process needs greater transparency; at least as much as the School Department has created in it's own process. Significant cuts, hundreds of thousands of dollars in savings, can be made; if leaders will lead and the people make their views known.

Ironically, it has been the School Department, and the School Committee that has set the bar for extracting efficiencies and making the decisions that require will and strength.

After the election, maybe, somehow, we can create a comunity dialogue about the municipal financial crisis we face, collectively. Bring together Department heads, talk about what is best for the City, and make some of those hard decisions, particularly on the City side.

One can always hope. In fact, it may be our last best hope of stopping the hemorrhaging.
The great storm may not be over, but it is breaking, and we'd best be ready for a new way to approach the issue of sustaining Newburyport as a place for seniors, businesses, industries, tourists, and students.

It is a time for leaders, for listeners, for simple and eloquent discussions of budgets, of who we have become, and what we want to be. Leaders who tell you they are leaders often aren't; real leaders will have accomplishments that have brought people into common agreement. Choose people at the voting booth who have lead by example; have taken unpopular stands and have been able to articulate why; play a few hunches, like Kathleen O'Connor Ives.

And be ready to become part of the great dialogue that will set Newburyport on it's course for the next fifty years. That is what this election is about, nothing less.