Wednesday, February 10, 2010
TOWN MEETING
Mark your calendars the Annual Town Meeting is the third Saturday of March and starts at 1:30PM.
Education
Well it has been a while my friends and the winter has been long. A lot is being undertaken or talked about regarding our current state of education, that of SAD 63 and the RSU or AOS. I would like to provide a couple of ideas that one might consider. First Clifton has no schools, we are currently a member of SAD 63, of which we could withdraw. Paying over $600,000 a year for 150 students works out to about $4,000 per student. Yet we face over hour bus rides to school, no after school program like Otis offers and there always seems to be turmoil in the district.
How about we withdraw from SAD63 and look at doing things a little different.
1. How about forming an AOS with CSD8, Otis, Amherst, Aurora, Osborn, Great Pond and Clifton.
2. How about no school - so we just tuition our kids to the school of choice, say either Otis or Eddington or Holbrook, much like we do with High Schools.
3. Maybe we should explore creating an academy like Dover and many others do. Then we recruit world wide for students to help off set costs.
We need good busing, after school, sports programs, homeschool study groups, a community school welcomes and that is open to any groups for use. Extra education or workshops on adult education, or maybe cooking, ATV/Sled safety, firearm safety. We need to get back to "community". The current system treats us like they are doing us a favor - it should be pointed out that we the citizens are in charge and the educators and administrators work for the citizens. I would very much like to hear your thoughts on the education system currently before us, its not all about power and control - it should be about education, boosting our youths adventures and seeing that we can move them ahead, hopefully college and a better life.
How about we withdraw from SAD63 and look at doing things a little different.
1. How about forming an AOS with CSD8, Otis, Amherst, Aurora, Osborn, Great Pond and Clifton.
2. How about no school - so we just tuition our kids to the school of choice, say either Otis or Eddington or Holbrook, much like we do with High Schools.
3. Maybe we should explore creating an academy like Dover and many others do. Then we recruit world wide for students to help off set costs.
We need good busing, after school, sports programs, homeschool study groups, a community school welcomes and that is open to any groups for use. Extra education or workshops on adult education, or maybe cooking, ATV/Sled safety, firearm safety. We need to get back to "community". The current system treats us like they are doing us a favor - it should be pointed out that we the citizens are in charge and the educators and administrators work for the citizens. I would very much like to hear your thoughts on the education system currently before us, its not all about power and control - it should be about education, boosting our youths adventures and seeing that we can move them ahead, hopefully college and a better life.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Clifton Man Sailer for New Independence
Sailor from Clifton eager for new Independence
By Nok-Noi Ricker
BDN Staff
BANGOR, Maine — The U.S. Navy has a pretty neat new boat in the water, and a man who grew up in Clifton is one of its 40-sailor crew.
Petty Officer 1st Class Bryan Hayes is a gas turbine technician aboard the USS Independence, a 418-foot trimaran, or three-hull, warship built for speed and its ability to travel into shallow waters.
“I’m working towards taking over the ship and sailing it” someday, Hayes said this week by phone from Mobile, Ala., where the vessel was built and will be commissioned into the Navy’s fleet on Jan. 16.
The vessel has two crews, and Hayes, a 1997 Brewer High School graduate, is an engineer on the first crew. He, along with the rest of the crew members, wear three or four other hats and work alongside automated machinery within the next-generation vessel.
“It’s the Navy’s newest program, and it’s unlike anything you’ve ever seen,” Jan Bowers, a Navy spokeswoman based in California, said this week of the Independence. “She can turn on a dime … [and] Bryan is part of a revolutionary crew.”
When Hayes, 30, recently re-enlisted aboard the newfangled littoral combat ship, he was the first sailor to do so, Lt. Cmdr. Chris Servello said.
“He kind of made history,” he said.
Hayes joined the Navy in 1998, after working for Getchell Bros. of Brewer for a year after high school. He spent 8½ years working with the Navy’s hoverboat program, and said the second he saw the Independence — with its distinctive aluminum hull, massive steerable waterjets and automated systems — that he knew he wanted to be a part of the pilot program.
“It’s a new, interesting boat,” he said. “I thought, ‘It’s pretty cool-looking and I want to be involved with it.’ It has new technology and it’s a new way of thinking for the Navy.”
The trimaran hull shape allows for a wide flight deck that can accommodate a helicopter and can handle choppy seas, and the boat has interchangeable equipment, including an unmanned submarine, which can be swapped out to match up with the type of mission the vessel is on.
The Navy is planning to build a fleet of new littoral combat ships, and is trying to decide between two prototypes — the trimaran Independence built by General Dynamics Corp., parent company of Bath Iron Works, and the Freedom, a monohull built by Lockheed Martin Corp.
The Independence, dubbed the LCS2, was built by Austal USA in Mobile, Ala., and the lead contractor was BIW. The 378-foot Freedom, the LCS1, has a steel hull and looks like a conventional warship. It was built by Lockheed in Marinette, Wis.
The costs of the two ships is about double the originally estimates of $220 million because the Navy wanted them built faster and with specific requirements for technology, speed and shallow-water accessibility.
The Independence reached highway speeds — 44 knots, or 52 mph — and maintained them for four hours during its Navy acceptance trials, held with in the Gulf of Mexico during mid-November.
The November issue of BIW News called this “a milestone achievement” for the entire General Dynamics littoral combat ship team that “reflects the significant contributions of many BIW mechanics, engineers and other specialists.”
The new Independence is the seventh naval ship with that name. The first Independence was commissioned in 1776, and No. 6 was decommissioned in September 1998, around the time Hayes joined the Navy.
Hayes, who says the ship is fast and fun, has sent photos of the Independence to his children, Auden, 9, and Willow, 5, who live in Hampden, and his mom, Kim Hayes-Gray, who last month moved from Clifton to Daytona Beach, Fla.
“That was what drew him,” she said this week. “That and the fact it’s a prototype. He did get a chance to go in the cockpit [bridge] when they went out on trials, and he was pretty excited about that.”
Hayes-Gray said that she is proud of her son for what he has accomplished.
“It has been a good direction for him,” she said.
Hayes, who keeps in touch with his children and his mom with Skype, a Web-based video conferencing system, is scheduled to fly to Las Vegas to get married to fellow sailor Aliscia Russo on Dec. 20, then into Bangor International Airport on Dec. 23.
“I will be home for the holidays,” he said.
By Nok-Noi Ricker
BDN Staff
BANGOR, Maine — The U.S. Navy has a pretty neat new boat in the water, and a man who grew up in Clifton is one of its 40-sailor crew.
Petty Officer 1st Class Bryan Hayes is a gas turbine technician aboard the USS Independence, a 418-foot trimaran, or three-hull, warship built for speed and its ability to travel into shallow waters.
“I’m working towards taking over the ship and sailing it” someday, Hayes said this week by phone from Mobile, Ala., where the vessel was built and will be commissioned into the Navy’s fleet on Jan. 16.
The vessel has two crews, and Hayes, a 1997 Brewer High School graduate, is an engineer on the first crew. He, along with the rest of the crew members, wear three or four other hats and work alongside automated machinery within the next-generation vessel.
“It’s the Navy’s newest program, and it’s unlike anything you’ve ever seen,” Jan Bowers, a Navy spokeswoman based in California, said this week of the Independence. “She can turn on a dime … [and] Bryan is part of a revolutionary crew.”
When Hayes, 30, recently re-enlisted aboard the newfangled littoral combat ship, he was the first sailor to do so, Lt. Cmdr. Chris Servello said.
“He kind of made history,” he said.
Hayes joined the Navy in 1998, after working for Getchell Bros. of Brewer for a year after high school. He spent 8½ years working with the Navy’s hoverboat program, and said the second he saw the Independence — with its distinctive aluminum hull, massive steerable waterjets and automated systems — that he knew he wanted to be a part of the pilot program.
“It’s a new, interesting boat,” he said. “I thought, ‘It’s pretty cool-looking and I want to be involved with it.’ It has new technology and it’s a new way of thinking for the Navy.”
The trimaran hull shape allows for a wide flight deck that can accommodate a helicopter and can handle choppy seas, and the boat has interchangeable equipment, including an unmanned submarine, which can be swapped out to match up with the type of mission the vessel is on.
The Navy is planning to build a fleet of new littoral combat ships, and is trying to decide between two prototypes — the trimaran Independence built by General Dynamics Corp., parent company of Bath Iron Works, and the Freedom, a monohull built by Lockheed Martin Corp.
The Independence, dubbed the LCS2, was built by Austal USA in Mobile, Ala., and the lead contractor was BIW. The 378-foot Freedom, the LCS1, has a steel hull and looks like a conventional warship. It was built by Lockheed in Marinette, Wis.
The costs of the two ships is about double the originally estimates of $220 million because the Navy wanted them built faster and with specific requirements for technology, speed and shallow-water accessibility.
The Independence reached highway speeds — 44 knots, or 52 mph — and maintained them for four hours during its Navy acceptance trials, held with in the Gulf of Mexico during mid-November.
The November issue of BIW News called this “a milestone achievement” for the entire General Dynamics littoral combat ship team that “reflects the significant contributions of many BIW mechanics, engineers and other specialists.”
The new Independence is the seventh naval ship with that name. The first Independence was commissioned in 1776, and No. 6 was decommissioned in September 1998, around the time Hayes joined the Navy.
Hayes, who says the ship is fast and fun, has sent photos of the Independence to his children, Auden, 9, and Willow, 5, who live in Hampden, and his mom, Kim Hayes-Gray, who last month moved from Clifton to Daytona Beach, Fla.
“That was what drew him,” she said this week. “That and the fact it’s a prototype. He did get a chance to go in the cockpit [bridge] when they went out on trials, and he was pretty excited about that.”
Hayes-Gray said that she is proud of her son for what he has accomplished.
“It has been a good direction for him,” she said.
Hayes, who keeps in touch with his children and his mom with Skype, a Web-based video conferencing system, is scheduled to fly to Las Vegas to get married to fellow sailor Aliscia Russo on Dec. 20, then into Bangor International Airport on Dec. 23.
“I will be home for the holidays,” he said.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
American Dream - Is It a Joke?
How do you do it? Some day we would all love to live the American Dream, own a piece of land, a house, have a nice car, travel, take the kids on a trip to disney, get a flatscreen TV, maybe an ATV or snowsled, stay at a lodge or just buy a new video game controller. Its all a ploy - we may never get ahead.
We live in a trailer, the three of us and occasionaly a friend stays over (more food, water and power), lol.
So lets look at a few costs and see what it is going to take to make this work. Yes I will put the wife to work and create a latch key kid with no parent around to guide or direct the children. Oops now I need two vehicles
Lets Do This By Month
Food $300 easy
Clothing $50
Christmas $50
Rent $500
Heat $125 average
Electric $125
Renter Insurance $65
Car Insurance - $100
Kids lunch and school fees $50
Sports $25
Eat Out maybe a movie $100
Water-Sewer $60
Health Insurance $350
Telephone $50
Internet $30
Cell Phone $40
Savings Joke
Church 10%
Car Payment $300
Gasoline $200
Child Care $475
Travel, vacation Joke
Oh did you forget your hunting, fishing, boating, ATV, Sled registration, maybe your car registrations, permits, licenses to work, additional training, birthday gifts, medical and drug co pays....keep adding to the list.
This bare budget comes to $36,000 a year
So we work 40 hours a week, call it 80 hours with both working, that 4160 hours a year without vacation, time off, sick or layed off. In order for this to work we each have to make around $14 an hour!!! Your thinking less, but you forgot State, Federal, FICA and Medicare about 30% or your wage. I have worked at the same job for a number of years with college education and don't make this kind of money. I am being to believe we should have stayed in a camp, self educated or try communial living with family (no I guess that isn't about to happen either). So before you get that new charge card and go wild shopping think about how long it is going to take us to pay it back - I am writing this as they shop. Happy Holidyas
We live in a trailer, the three of us and occasionaly a friend stays over (more food, water and power), lol.
So lets look at a few costs and see what it is going to take to make this work. Yes I will put the wife to work and create a latch key kid with no parent around to guide or direct the children. Oops now I need two vehicles
Lets Do This By Month
Food $300 easy
Clothing $50
Christmas $50
Rent $500
Heat $125 average
Electric $125
Renter Insurance $65
Car Insurance - $100
Kids lunch and school fees $50
Sports $25
Eat Out maybe a movie $100
Water-Sewer $60
Health Insurance $350
Telephone $50
Internet $30
Cell Phone $40
Savings Joke
Church 10%
Car Payment $300
Gasoline $200
Child Care $475
Travel, vacation Joke
Oh did you forget your hunting, fishing, boating, ATV, Sled registration, maybe your car registrations, permits, licenses to work, additional training, birthday gifts, medical and drug co pays....keep adding to the list.
This bare budget comes to $36,000 a year
So we work 40 hours a week, call it 80 hours with both working, that 4160 hours a year without vacation, time off, sick or layed off. In order for this to work we each have to make around $14 an hour!!! Your thinking less, but you forgot State, Federal, FICA and Medicare about 30% or your wage. I have worked at the same job for a number of years with college education and don't make this kind of money. I am being to believe we should have stayed in a camp, self educated or try communial living with family (no I guess that isn't about to happen either). So before you get that new charge card and go wild shopping think about how long it is going to take us to pay it back - I am writing this as they shop. Happy Holidyas
Friday, December 11, 2009
Drinking and the Law
Let me start by being very clear! I have no issue with proper use of alochol and drinking, personally I enjoy JD and light beer. However I do have a problem with drinking and driving (OUI/DWI), and more concern about underage drinking. Having been hit head on a few years ago by a drunk driver going the wrong way on a one way street and the surgery our family went through - see no reason in this day and age not to be responsible and make a plan before you drink, especially if you know you are going to need a ride. I noticed youth in our community, under the age of 21, drinking and driving on what is getting to be a regular basis. I don't know, short of calling the law, what we can do for education to our youth that will hit home the point of one - don't drink underage and two don't drink and drive - period. I understand the voting age is 18, driving is age 16 and if in the military you could be stationed in country that has a lower drinking age than 21. I have heard about every education point on underage drinking and driving there is, lectures, mock accidents, fake trials, posters, family loss and a long list. The only thing that seems to have some impact is contactig the parents or the law. At times neither can be pleasent - but if the alochol comes from home or is condoned it creates a bigger problem. I am thinking is I shoot a deer at night, I get a minimum $1,000 fine, loss of firearm, vehicle and right to hunt for a while. If I get caught underage it a small fire and driving drunk get maybe $500 fine, a few hours community service work or 48 hours in jail. Maybe if we looked at increasing the penalty to say $1,000 and loss of the vehicle (seize it) folks would think twice about drinking and driving. This is a subject that many don't like to talk about and certainly not in a small town - but the issue is here and we need to think of an action plan, before we attend services for one of our youth! Any new ideas on education?
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Ice and Fishing
I realize that some are ready to fish, and warm waters can be fished from the time the ice covers the water. As a trapper and one doing the daily search for beaver and such I can tell you that the ice is not ready yet. No matter how solid the cove looks or the sheet around the dock, please don't venture yet on the ice. The water is cold, about 33 degrees. And speaking from today, when you go through and get wet, it is not fun and will be life threathing. So parents keep an eye on the kids near those backyard ponds and coves that are starting to ice over.
Snow and Plowing
By the looks of things in the last 96 hours, winter has arrived early! Rain, wind, sleet, snow and more. Some of you lost power over the weekend for about seven hours (2am to about 9am)a result of a breaker trip on Route 9. The road crew is out plowing and sanding, salting as needed. Thanks to the efforts of Penny, the DOT did some work to the most troubling road, route 180. Aside from the S turns and high hill, 180 receives very little winter sun to melt the ice. The DOT did do some triming, ditching and grading, but without major reconstruction it can still be a dangerous road system. Depending on the time of day, based on the suns movement, the ride up or down Rebel Hill can be somewhat like a roller coaster. As I mentioned there is no one solution to the road problems, short of total reconstruction. A State Trooper was interviewed on the news the other day regarding people going off the road in the winter. The trooper stated he always asks the drivers, if you had been going 15mph slower do you think you would have gone off the road - he said the answer is always no. So when traveling 180 keep your eyes open, watch for other vehicles and take it easy, especially on the S turns from Route 9 to the Spring Pond Road.
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