The Representative Town Meeting passed the $465 million municipal budget for the coming year with 165 voting in favor, three opposed, and four abstentions, early Tuesday morning. The final vote belays the earlier drama of several votes: including the bump-outs on Greenwich Avenue, the Fire Department’s budget, and the temporary ice rink.
A motion was made to cut $2.8 million for the next bump-outs on Greenwich Avenue. It failed by a surprisingly slim margin; 95 in favor of the cut and 111 opposed to the cut. It shows how that issue of the bump-out has become controversial. We saw heated debate on social media with misinformation being put forth.
Now that the funding for the next phase of bump-outs has been secured, we hope cooler heads will prevail. We are certain this issue will come up again. When it does, we hope it is debated on the facts and without the rancor we witnessed this time.
A vote that surprised us at the RTM was to cut $1 dollar from the fire department’s budget. The largely symbolic move was akin to throwing down the gauntlet. The vote of 145 in favor, 54 opposed, and 15 abstentions, will not affect the department’s operations. It is response to recent grumblings among volunteer firemen that they are being pushed out in favor of unionized career firemen. Members of the RTM want them to work together and resolve their differences.
Fire Chief Joseph McHugh is still relatively new to the position, and he will certainly use his experience as a New York Fireman to help bring best practices to Greenwich’s fire department. However, he must do so while considering the very real service and abilities our volunteers provide.
The volunteer firemen in Greenwich have a rich history of service to our town. In fact, the very first fire company was the Amergerone Volunteer Fire Company. They began operations in the summer of 1876. Since that time there has been a continued presence of volunteer firemen throughout town.
We understand the need to always look to improve operations at the fire department – lives literally depend on doing so. But the improvement cannot be a one-way street. There has to be give and take between career and volunteer firemen. This is an opportunity for outside-the- box thinking and leadership.
We implore Chief McHugh to demonstrate that leadership. There are safety and cost saving opportunities to be examined. Chief McHugh is the right person to do so. After all, he started out as a volunteer fireman with the Sound Beach Fire Department.
A motion to cut $45,000 from the budget to determine a temporary ice rink location left us befuddled. The RTM voted 136 to 76 to remove the fund even though private donations would have reimbursed the monies. It seemed like a no brainer to us.
The Dorothy Hamill Skating Rink needs to be replaced. No one disputes that fact. It is 50 years old and antiquated. In order not to lose an ice rink for the time it takes to replace it a location must be found for a temporary rink. That costs money. It does not have anything to do with the plan for rebuild the existing rink.
The vote likely means putting off the rebuild or losing the ice team for all the Greenwich skaters who use the rink. The former is unfortunate – the latter would be tragic. We hope a solution will be found soon to move this project forward.
In closing, we do want to say “thank you” to all the members of the RTM. These volunteers give up much of their time to be on the RTM. It is not simply once a month. There are district meetings and committee meetings. And in the case of this month’s budget meeting, it went until 1 o’clock in the morning. We greatly appreciate the job you do for our community.
