I missed this earlier

Playland’s pool, 5 minutes from Byram

Jim Lash has written in support of his wife’s current pet project, the Byram Pool. I’m disappointed to learn that because, until now, I thought the man was a champion of  careful stewardship of the taxpayer dollar, and hadn’t realized that he’d sell us out for domestic peace.

But here’s what I just noticed, buried in his opinion piece:

[T] he project has been developed and partially funded by the Junior League in an effort co-chaired this year by Sue Rogers and [my wife] Debby Lash…. The league has contributed $40,000 to architectural and engineering design costs and is considering a capital campaign to raise $2.5 million as part of a public-private partnership to fund the project

So there is no Junior League funding for this folly, nor is there a commitment to any; they might try a fund raiser, they might not, and they’re silent on any sort of guarantee that any particular amount will be raised, if any at all. They come up with a do-good idea, we get to pay for it.

If the good ladies of the Junior League think the poor of this town should have a new pool, I suggest they back their compassion with full funding. The project’s estimated cost has already climbed from $7 million to $13 million before anyone’s even settled on a design, let alone broken ground, so it’s an easy prediction that the $13 will double again. From what I understand of the membership of the League, they, or their husbands, like Jim Lash, can easily afford to pay that tab.

And if they aren’t willing to, why should taxpayers be forced to support their good intentions?

Isn’t this the woman who just this week was blaming sex discrimination for her failure to get paid more?

Patricia Arquette thinks gender discrimination is holding down her salary. Patricia Arquette, as seen yesterday, is delusional.

Does this muffin top make me look fat?

 

The breakdown of civilization

Arizona woman concocts phony abduction story to hide that she was merely too lazy to plan her boyfriend’s birthday party.

Such a sad decline from the ’50s, when women were taught how to properly treat their more-significant others.

‘I love my husband, and we have a charming home and three wonderful children. But it is all spoilt for me because I do so hate bedtime and all it implies,’ was the start of one letter sent to the Woman’s Own agony aunt, Leonora Eyles. It was typical, said Eyles, of 60 per cent of the letters in her daily postbag.

Never talk cleverly to men — they’re terrified of brainy women

She advised the mother-of-three to build up a sense of gratitude to her husband for working hard and bringing in the money — by telling herself: ‘He is doing this for us, to keep going this home we share, to buy things for me, to pay our rent, to give me treats . . . I love him so much!’

In other words, sex was a transaction. The man got what he wanted. The woman got a roof over her head.

With newly-weds, Eyles took a briskly sympathetic attitude.

Sex problems, she said, could usually be solved with a bit of home decorating.

Couples who got down to papering and painting ‘their nest’ would discover that physical activity made all the difference. ‘Night will approach and a happy mating with it,’ she promised.

He smelled something fishy

Canadian lobsterman who forged $100 bills on paper table napkins busted after store clerk caught on.

We should take them at their word

Smart Diplomacy™

White House: “Policy success” led to 150 muslim terrorists being released to join ISIS.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Thursday that up to 150 Muslims in America have joined, or have tried to join, ISIS in northern Syria, amid an intensive government-backed anti-radicalization campaign by U.S.-based Muslim groups.

The campaign “has been a successful, fruitful partnership that has protected the American people, including American Muslims,” he claimed.

The Daily Caller asked Earnest to explain how the attempted or successful effort by up to 150 U.S.-based Muslims to join the Islamic States is compatible with his claim of a successful anti-radicalization campaign.

“Check with Homeland Security on that,” Earnest replied.

Earnest did not say what an unsuccessful partnership would have accomplished.

When they say their policy was  success, they mean it; how come so many don’t recognize that?

Or the camel’s nose under the tent

“Freedom is slavery” G. Orwell,1984

Hillary supports the new regulatory scheme for the internet: “It’s a foot in the door.”

The whole idea of subjecting the internet to “demonstrated public need” regulatory review is that now politicians can demand bribes from entrepreneurs. Duh.

The sky is falling – or freezing, anyway

Don’t they know, it’s the ennnd of the world … 1934

Global warming brings NYC temperatures this month to their lowest level since 1934. “1934 marked the highpoint of horse-drawn traffic”, Chief Global Warming Priest Albert Gore explained to FWIW. “And though now, thank Gaia, we’ve gotten rid of all of them except a few in Central Park, which my friend and ally Bill DeBlasio is eliminating, we’ve replaced horse manure and methane with the evil fumes of gasoline. Oh, woe is us!”

Mid-Country contract

32 Sawmill Lane

32 Sawmill Lane, asking $3. 195.  Sellers paid $2.975 for it in 2011, and since nothing was done to it between then and now, I guess that’s slightly encouraging for owners in this area – these homeowners should just about break even.

Well, … maybe

3 Old Round Hill Lane

3 “Old Round Hill Lane” (which is actually, “New Old Mill Road”- it was probably named by its developer when Round Hill Road still had cachet, before half its denizens were dragged off to prison) is a new listing priced at $8.995 million. It’s a beautifully proportioned Kali-Naagy house, and a very nice house indeed. New, it sold for $6.5 in 2003; used, it sold for $6.110 in 2010. These sellers have updated it, apparently, and hope to reverse its downward trend of depreciation.

(Another) price cut on Round Hill Road

297 Round Hill Road

297 Round Hill Road, now down to $4.750. This was, and still is, a unique house, and was really pretty cool when it sold for $5.7 million in 2006. Those buyers tried selling it two years later, unchanged, for $7.250, and finally settled for a 19% haircut in 2010, selling it for $5,212,500. And then those buyers “renovated it” and placed it back on the market in 2010 for $5.699 million; it’s been pretty much on the market ever since, with various price cuts over the years, down to today’s $4.750.

It remains a good house, but the reaction of many agents back in 2010 was that the renovations had reduced, not enhanced its appeal, and judging from its lengthy stay on the market, buyers seem to agree. Still, at a million less than that 2006 price, it seems that the owners have paid penance for their ill-advised changes, and this should be a pretty good buy today.

Missed opportunity

39 Doubling Rd

39 Doubling Road, bank owned, has sold for $2.9 million. Ogilvy sold it (he had both sides of the deal), in 18 days, for its full price of $6.250 million back in 2007, and though that was a ridiculous price, $2.9 is  a good deal. Most painful to me, I contacted every client I had just before the foreclosure became final, advising them, truthfully – inside information, sort of – that they could buy this for $2.5 million. No one bit, even though that was pure land value.

The house could easily absorb another $2.5 in updates and restoration, but it will be worth more than that when it is. Or, torn down and replaced, it will also be worth a fair penny.

Greenwich Time strikes again

So, where was patrolman Stewart when we needed him?

Following in the slipstream of those hawks that were sited, not sighted, in town, Greenwich Time now reports on the retirement of police officer  David Stewart, whose duties included, they report, participation in “dignity protection”:

As a Patrol Officer, he was recognized for his team efforts in narcotics investigations, the apprehension of burglary suspects, and his professionalism during Dignity Protection Details.

It took me a minute to figure that one out: gay pride marches, perhaps? I suspect they mean “dignitary”, not dignity, but then again, who knows?

I guess he was too busy investigating Russian porn to attend to this

Somewhere in the bowels of Town Hall: Находитесь ли вы под 12 ?

Before he finally retired as Greenwich’s IT manager, Boris Hutorin, or someone under his supervision, was caught spending time on Russian porn sites. Aside from a massive failure of the town’s computer system with the permanent loss of 5 terabytes of data because he had installed no backup system (!), no one’s sure what he actually did during his 13-year-tenure (“we looking into it”, said Peter Tesei).

One thing I just discovered he never got around to, nor his successor, is to provide online access to our RTM members. I attempted just now to contact my District 5 representatives to voice my opposition to the Byram pool fiasco and discovered that not only is there no way to email all of them, there are no email addresses provided for any of them. It’s quaint to think we should send them personal letters, but that system of communication went to the great buggy whip factory in the sky, long ago.

Ridiculous.

Contract reported

184 Stanwich Road

184 Stanwich Road, $2.950 million (ask). It’s a wonderful old (1934) house on almost 2 acres, close to town, but boy, does it need a lot of work. Still, once restored and brought up-to-date, it will be a wonderful house again.

I take it back: sometimes staging can work

10 STEPPING STONE

After 923 days on the market, 10 Stepping Stone Lane reports a contract. When I first saw this house back in 2012, it was priced at $1.825 million and a wreck.  I felt truly sorry for the listing agent, a good friend of mine (and I told her so – she asked). It looks as though, finally, it was cleaned up, staged and lowered in price (to $1.650). Stepping Stone’s a decent street, and now the house seems to match that, so good for my friend; owners can be stubborn, and reluctant to put more money into a house they no longer want, even if it will help them get rid it.

Gee, this’ll boost their readership

50 shades of grey

DC Comic’s new female writer outs Cat Woman as a bi-sexual.

It’s estimated that, at most, 3% of the population is homo or bi-sexual, so there probably aren’t that many young readers for whom this revelation will be of interest. On the other hand, if they will now draw explicit scenes of Cat Woman getting it on with her new partners, I suppose little boys will flock to it. Little Annie Fanny was certainly popular.

If he’s doing this to get laid, he’s out of luck: heterosexual women will figure that his spine isn’t the only thing that’s limp

“i need feminism because women are more important than men”

He’ll probably attract lesbo-feminists, but what’s the point?

 

Why can’t we stop this project?

BET approves Byram pool. I don’t know of any widespread support for this expenditure among Greenwich taxpayers, yet it just keeps going and going. Can the RTM strike single items from the budget, or must it vote on the entire budget, up or down? If the former, there’s still a chance. Otherwise, Music Palace redux.

Another $100 million up in smoke

Anybody home?

RBS moving out of Stamford, along with UBS.

RBS executives told reporters in the United Kingdom that the bank is reviewing the need for its Stamford operation, as first reported by the Wall Street Journal, part of its plan to “significantly” scale back its U.S. investment banking operations. RBS maintains a large office and trading floor in Stamford it built with $100 million in state assistance, consolidating operations there in 2010 from its former RBS Greenwich Capital building on Greenwich Harbor and from New York City.

The reporter for this story claims that the abandoned building will be a gift to Stamford from Connecticut taxpayers, but given the source of Connecticut’s funding, it’s really a gift from Greenwich to Stamford and from Stamford to itself. When UBS flees, just ahead of RBS, Stamford will have 1,600,000 sq.ft. of  additional vacant office space to fill, built with our tax dollars. Such a deal.

Billionaire Nancy Pelosi bewails the lack of funds for her fellow congressmen: “they’re living paycheck to paycheck”

The average net worth of Congress is about $1 million, the senate, $14 million. Of course, this is the same lady who said of the federal budget, “the cupboards are bare; there’s not a nickel left to cut”, so she obviously has a different view of money than the rest of us.