Hey Rob, when is my street going to get paved?

I started to read this until I got to the part about personal attacks. I'd like to let you know that one of your supports who goes as Jane Doe or Nancy whoever she is made a disgusting remark about "mentally challenged" people. My nine year old daughter with Down Syndrome and myself were horribly offended by this. So next time we mention personal attacks, let's take that into consideration. Okay?

I'm sure you've all heard the saying that if it's to good to be true... please do not let these people brain wash your citizens into thinking budget #2 saves money or reduce taxes. I Love how you have to put former budget committee member in your signature by the way...emphasis on FORMER!

Budget #1 is responsible, ethical and decided by the people who were elected by the people. If you have any ounce of personnal responsibility to your town you will agree with what the elected budget committee is presenting...FACTS and not the manipulation the TCC wants you to believe.

Don't vote to control your taxes, rather
Vote to protect your taxes!

Another one of Nelson's lap dogs! As rob would say, Most Reasonable people - would vote for Bugdet #1!!

Nothing says "long term stability" like raiding the General Fund, using Enron-like accounting tricks like relying on mysterious "new revenues", and defunding your school system. A five-year-old knows how foolish an argument that is. Mr Coulter, please explain how it's responsible to take nearly $600,000 from the schools, moving it into the municipal budget & creating a 4.6% spending increase, on top of $350,000 of carryforwards money already there. Tell the taxpayers how your budget saves them $1.39 a week while forcing closure of a school or elimination of extracurricular activities, all while the Town Council grabs nearly a million extra dollars. Why not return it to the taxpayers if lower taxes is so important? This is cheap, petty politics at its ugliest & most self-serving. No wonder you need to solicit anonymous out-of-town $1800 donations to push your agenda. You had a chance to be responsible & bring the town together for once by backing the Budget Cmte's responsible compromise. And as usual, you chose to create turmoil. As someone who's never offered the town anything but phony attacks, failed lawsuits, and brazen deceit, spare us your crocodile tears on how mean those who oppose you are. You seem to forget that your words & actions are preserved on video and in print, and you will be held accountable for them, & for the damage your budget scheme causes the town & our kids.

Let's review some TCC Math Magic. Mr. Coulter claims there are 2,000 unemployed residents in Town, Let's breakdown this assertion, First there are approximately 16,000 people who live in Town, 2000 of which are children. This leaves 14,000 residents. Assuming the remaining residents all work then Tiverton's unemployment rate would be 14.2% which would be one of the highest in the country. Since you did not cite any sources to support your claim I think this is another example of a TCC member providing false information in an effort to support an indefensible position which is to cut the School Department by $587,000 while at the time increasing municipal spending by 4.6%.

On another note, I found it interesting that you voted to enact the Pay as You Throw Program yet your wife admitted at a public meeting that she takes the family trash and disposes of it in Newport. What a hypocrite.

"this hasn’t stopped the personal attacks, manipulation of numbers, and scare tactics "

What?! Do you read the other letters that your fellow TCC'ers write. Do you read the comments that are made on here?? Have you read all the corrections of "misstatements" and the letters telling the "other side" that your friends left out?"

I agree with Renee, I quit reading after the first papragrpah - Mr. Coulter appears out of touch with reality.

JAT: To paraphrase Leona Helmsley, "Only the LITTLE people in town have to buy bags & use PAYT."

Well, at least he went to Harvard! That makes him smarter than the average person. Hence, throwing the garbage out at his wife's work. What troubles me is the ignorance at which these people do business. People get elected for a variety of reasons. This town has become small time D.C. with all the political crap and nonsense that goes on. There has been more executive sessions, legal fees, trash fees, no answers, etc. There was a hearing last week, no one could truthfully answer questions about QUESTION #2. Who would vote for this option? I am just an average person that went to a local state school and I know this makes no sense. When you campaign on TRANSPARENCY and do nothing to back this up, than what are you? Stop selling your message to the seniors. You do not care about them. If you took the time to explain your budget that would have been different. By the way, whatever happened to Mr. Katz's budget? Did you realize that you did not want the votes spread out over 3 budgets? Stop treating people in this town like you know what's best for them!

"On another note, I found it interesting that you voted to enact the Pay as You Throw Program yet your wife admitted at a public meeting that she takes the family trash and disposes of it in Newport. "

WHAT!! I missed this - when/where was that?

You mean to tell me that these guys have thrown a major fit over the budget committee taking the $168K out of the budget and the Coulter's don't even buy bags. No wonder they don't care if the rest of get taxed 2X.

"Town Administrator and Town Council’s carefully crafted budget and policies meant to support long-term stability"... Gee Robbie, don't hurt yourself patting yourself on the back. Everyone knows that you created the budget and paraded the town administrator around under duress to deflect criticism from you and Dave. What were you two doing on stage advocating for a petitioner's budget? Were you there as citizens, or were you using town resources to advocate for a ballot question? Either way, there wasn't a lot of "transparency".

If only you would use your resources to promote community growth, economic and cultural expansion and of course, enhancements to our school system...then maybe you would see that Tiverton serves us all-and not just a select few. There are many of us, many of us, who do all of the above-and continue to build community and support our schools despite the negative impact you and other members of the TCC have imposed on this town. Oh. And. Lower our taxes? You have already WASTED our taxes on unnecessary lawsuits. So far, the TCC has not followed through with anything they keep promising-your arrogance has cost this town too much already. Voting for Budget #1 is the responsible vote for the greater good of this community. It's time to take back Tiverton.

Interesting that Mr. Coulter chose to wait until the last minute to post more misinformation. Tiverton's, Rhode Island's and the US unemployment rate are horrible. However, we again see the TCC playing lose with the fact on this. If you visit the RI Dept. of Labor and Training's data center and drill down to this page (http://www.dlt.ri.gov/lmi/laus/town/laus12.htm) you will find that in March 2012 (latest available), Tiverton's labor force was 8,902 individuals, the number employed was 7,849 and the number unemployed (no indication of length of unemployment but certainly the assumption is made that many are long term unemployed) was 1,053. Too high - YES! However, Mr. Coulter states it to be twice as high as the labor department statistics.
Oh, what's that, you say he included underemployed in that figure. But how did he determine nearly 1,000 underemployed? According the the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (see http://bls.gov/cps/faq.htm#Ques12), "Because of the difficulty of developing an objective set of criteria which could be readily used in a monthly household survey, no official government statistics are available on the total number of persons who might be viewed as underemployed. Even if many or most could be identified, it would still be difficult to quantify the loss to the economy of such underemployment."
Just one more example of Mr. Coulter and his friends use of bad information to mislead voters. Support our community by approving Budget Question #1.

So what does the unemployment rate have to do with anthing other than the fact that their taxeshould be held to the lowest posible fugure so then can't get on their feet again,why should they pay a higher tax rate to a school system that refuses to live within the money they are given in a budget? you think the unemployed and elderly in this town can just tax X amount of their budget an just NOT use it?The schools are getting MORE money this year, it just that their wish list isn't getting all check marks period

and you real name is?and we should not vote to to save taxpayer money and make the school system live within there budget because some one got employment figures wrong, and some one throws there trash out someplace else? thats a reason to hand the schools more taxpayer money? What cut. the schools are getting more money, their just not getting their complete wish list, no teaching money is involved here, theres no new contract/they are getting what certain citizens after studying the schools think that what the schools realy need not want, thats why the FTR was given life, to stop wastefull taxpayer money, Trashbags? wrong unemployment figures, thats the best you got? doesn't make me want to reach in my pocket to give more money to a broken system

So instead you want to vote for a budget plan that is obviously flawed? That makes a ton of sense. Good for you!

Among all the we-said/they-said, let's not forget the facts:

Budget 1 is fully vetted, follows strict accounting standards, and was created by months of hard work by the budget committee. Budget 2 was created in private without citizen input by an ideologically-based private group and uses mysterious accounting methods that its creators refuse to explain.

Budget 1 was created by a duly-elected body. Budget 2 was created by a group rife with conflicts of interest including one member whose wife serves on the school committee and flipped her support, two members who serve on the council and used the work of a town employee to create their proposal, and another member who serves on the budget committee. Where do their elected responsibilities end and their personal agenda begin?

Budget 1 responsibly funds ALL of the town's operations. Budget 2 guts the schools and adds pounds of pork to the municipal budget.

Budget 1 provides a future for our town, while budget 2 will scare away home buyers with children, who also happen to be the chief consumers at local businesses.

Whether you vote with your conscience or your brain, the result is the same. Budget 1 is the only sensible and responsible direction for this town.

It just shows that the old saying is true, " How do you know when a lawyer is lying, it's when his lips are moving!!" Once again, as Robbie would say, Most reasonable people - vote Budget #1.

Tiger,

Your comments are unacceptable and unwelcome. We can win on the facts, we don't need the name calling. Please stop.

Here is a valid and trustworthy breakdown of both budgets.....the answer is clear: Budget #1 is the budget for the greater good:

Option #1 - 11 person panel including accountant & former treasurer, 6+ months, line by line, site visits, meeting with department heads, and other elected officials produce budget for the ENTIRE community that has an increase of 2.6%. Minimal in the face of the State pension crisis, rising health insurance and fuel costs. No salary increases and no frivolity.
VS.
Option #2 - 1 man, 1 night, the addition of 3 lines of revenue, 2 of which are completely unsupported, and 1 reducing the general fund, add up to a 1.1% increase - what happens when the 2 unsupported lines of revenue DO NOT materialize? Creative Accounting at best - (I've yet to figure how to account for made up revenue), and future tax increases to restore what was stripped away.

> Please check out the RI Office of Municipal Affairs website , and see the budgets, tax bases and tax rates of the other 38 communities in the State of RI. There are only 12 other communities, all with 100% assessment of real property, that have a lower tax rate. Our community, although we have our faults, we are a solid full service community - and the beauty is hard to compare.
>
> Think about your vote - and look at the process and the hard numbers.
>

Great News reported today! GoLocalProv.com reported Tiverton High School ranks 16th out of 51 High Schools in Rhode island. Yes, your tax money IS being well spent educating Tiverton's children to be future leaders for tomorrow and has been confirmed through an independedt study and report. Of course the TCC will find all kinds of fault and never recognize the great work being put forth by all those who work in the Tiverton School System. I have no qualm or issues in how the School Administration has been using the resources we as taxpayers have been providing. Even though my children have long left any my grandkids will not be beneficiares of the Tiverton School system, I do believe in supporting the next generation's ability to compete regardless where I live and pay taxes. Unlike the TCC who continually rail on CHILD ONLY expenses, as can be seen through thier record municipal increase of three times the budget committee recommendation coupled with unsubstantiated school cuts to fund thier wasteful and bloated spending, I am in favor of providing Tiverton kids the ability to have a well rounded education so they can be successful in any endeavor or career they choose to follow.

robbie, how long did you work on lord nelson's budget, 20 minutes? Where will the purported revenues come from? When you can answer these and the other questions asked by your constituents, we might actually take you seriously. Until then, my garbage pick up is mid week- can I drop off a couple of bags for Mrs Coulter to take to Newport or is the car already full from the nelsons'?

And the robocalls have begun!

Thanks Matt
for posting the site from golocalprov