Do the Math
By Nancy Muldoon
In my
formative years I always excelled at English class, Art class and I was one of
the few girls that actually enjoyed gym class. Math was always my weakest
subject and I was always in the lowest math group every year of school.
In sixth grade at Lake
Avenue school my teacher Mrs. Foster would be
become frustrated at my math impairment and would shout, “Do the math Nancy,
do the math!”
Not surprisingly, her yelling at me
didn’t make the numbers in my head move any faster. In fact it gave me a strong
aversion to numbers and anything that resembled a math class to this day.
But after listening to politicians
talk about waste in various City Hall Departments and reading letters to the
editor regarding our towns financial demise it seems that I am not the only one
with a math impediment.
For those against paid parking, do
the math! There aren’t too many cities anywhere where you can park for free. Is
it written somewhere in the constitution that says we are eternally entitled to
free parking?
Every Racing Season tourists are
charged anywhere from $5-$20 to park their car in my neighborhood (close
proximity to the Racecourse) so they can spend even more money at the
racetrack. Have you ever overheard a tourist say that they aren’t coming back
to Saratoga because they had to pay
to park their car?
No. No you haven’t and you won’t.
THEY EXPECT TO PAY. And that’s
exactly why they should be made to pay when they want to park downtown.
Do tourists complain about having
to pay for an overpriced sandwich at certain businesses downtown. Sure, but the
downtown business association makes sure those comments never make it into
certain newspapers here in town.
Regarding
DPW:
Get rid of the weakest links in the chain, if they happen to
be the workers who are making over $30 an hour, oh well. You save the city
money by getting rid of those who make the most not the least. The problem with
the unions is that unfortunately it protects bad workers as well as good
workers. That is any unions inherent weakness and that weakness costs the city
money everyday.
Regarding the East and West Side
Recreation fields:
I was told by Ron Kim
that they belong to the school district but are maintained by the city and that
it costs the city 50K a year to do so.
Can’t we have the elementary school children at Caroline
Street Schools and Division Street schools help pick up litter and rake leaves
and do various other jobs to maintain these grounds as some sort of community
service?
I’m sure every citizen of Saratoga could come up with their
own list on how to save money for the city and either write a letter to your
elected officials or better yet, come to a city hall meeting and read your list
to the council members and between a bunch of us I’m positive that we can do
the math!
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Well said. People should just pay and shut up about it. I mean you are lucky enough to find a spot, I would pay 10 bucks.