The Town of Huntington, New York (11743), November, 2013

 Election Day is coming fast! Let’s look at some numbers!

#1   Town Supervisor                            

       $162.9k **                                                           

       4 / $521.2k
#2   Town Attorney
       $149.8k **
       13 / $1,135.0k

#3   Highway Superintendent
       $146.9k**
       8 / $603.2k
#4   Planning Dir.
       $131.8k **
       21 / 1,455.3k
#5   Town Clerk
       $130.2k**
       8 / $496.6k
#6   Town Engineer
       $128.4k **                                                                  
       7 / $581.6k
#7   Parks Dept.
       $128.3k **
       9 / $639.4k  
#8   Public Safety

       $123.7k **
       27 / $2,029.7k

#9   Waste Mgmt.
       $121.1k **
       4 / $389.7k 

# "f-ing" 10     !Parking.! Meter! !Attendent!
                         !$93.7k! **
                         1 / $93.7k 
#11  Harbor Master
        $90.3k **
        6 / $410.3 
#12  Security Guard
        $90.2k **
        1 / $90.2k
#13  Ice Rink  Mgr.
        $77.4k **
        4 / $232.6k 
#14  Town Council Member
        $76.9k **
        9 / $464.6k  
#15  Hart Bus Driver
        $67.2k **
        17 / $1,142.4k
                                                          

  

Note: **All salary figure reflect full-time employment. They exclude       

 Health Care, Earned PTO, Retirement Funds, & Special Perks(if applicable). The total Department Budget figures are for the 

               titled office only; they are not for remote offices/locations, or 

               the general labor force.

                                              

The positions, salaries, and office budgets, above, are just a sampling of where your Town tax dollars go. When an employee of the Town’s Public Safety Department, "THE PARKING METER ATTENDENT", can earn over $100,000.00 per year with salary, benefits, and overtime, isn’t it time to take a closer look at who’s spending our hard earned cash?

                      WHAT WE HAVE

Most of these folks need to go home and let someone else take over.

                                                   

                                                WHAT WE NEED!                              

                                  
                                                           






        THE MADNESS*!

* Want to make $51,218.50 per year, plus benefits? The Town Planning Office needs a “Planning Aide”.

 More base numbers:

Table 1

Total number of Town employees	full time	700
Total number of Town employees	part time	216
Total Town operating expenses		$181, 264, 125.00
Total Town population		203,264 (2010 census)

Get out your calculators and do some good old multiplying and dividing.

Table 2

Total number of Town employees	916	$181, 264, 125.00 spent	$197,886.60 employee to expenditures ratio
Total Town population	203,264	$181, 264, 125.00 spent	$891.77 per person - annually

                                        What are we getting for our money?

·        We get roads that don’t get plowed correctly, or at all, during the winter.

·        We get a slew of “listed” tree trimmers and their supervisors who can’t seem to keep our streets clear after a storm.

·        We get a sewage plant that overflows when there’s a cloud in the sky.

·        We get a domino effect with the pot-holes in our streets, especially when gas, water, sewer, and drainage is worked on.

·        We get the top of Route 110 in Halesite still flooding even after the millions of dollars we’ve spent to fix the problem.

·        We get parking garages at the train station that have elevators that don’t work, have urine in all the corners, and structural damages that no one seems to able to address.

·        We get elected Town Officials who, along with their Town salaries, have second incomes that put them in the $250,000.00 range every year.

·        We get elected Town Officials who don’t know when it’s their time to go (probably due to the Town salaries they make).

·        We get Republicans who switch Parties simply to get elected for another term.

·        We get Democrats who switch Parties simply to get another term.

    

&   We get elected Officials and challengers who can’t resist using fear and smear  tactics to get elected, or re-elected, every November.  

&   We get at least two  Political Parties who feel no remorse in bastardizing the democratic process  inside their own committees.

JUST SAY…………..NO!

                             What needs to happen to change all this for the better?

·        We need strong voices from a third Party organization, or people with no Party affiliation.

·        We need to challenge how our Town governance works, and force the processes out of the dark recesses of “business as usual”.

·        We need someone who is ready, willing, and able to restructure our Town tax codes.

·        We need a Town Hall administration that refuses to keep borrowing money, and running up deficits.

·        We need term limits at all levels.

·        We need to stop padding the Town payroll with family members.

·        We need to have our elected Officials pay sole attention to Town business and not undertake outside interests for padding their incomes.

·        We need to bring the Town payroll under control and have salaries more reflective of the private sector.

·        We need folks who know how to negotiate contracts with the residents of Huntington in mind.

·        We need to put the hammer down on our Town’s criminal element. Suffolk County Police have most of them on speed dial.

·        We need positive, aggressive trimming of the “fat” in Town Hall.

There are some third Parties out there that are just lying in wait to be summoned forward. I have been going over some of their platforms and two of these organizations jumped off the page at me. The “Modern Whig Party” states to be pragmatic, centrist, common sense, and rational rather than ideological. They seem, on the surface, to embody the good points of the “Libertarian Party”, one of which involves giving the States more autonomy. Their stand on immigration, our borders defenses, our Armed Forces, and our Veterans makes takes a very logical, rational approach. The “Veterans Party of America” is very similar in its approach to government. It does give a lot more weight to the Military and to Military Veterans (I kind of like that). There are plenty of other political Parties to consider; Libertarian, Independent, Social Democrat, Green Party, Coffee Party, etc. The first two that I mentioned caught me interest because of their “don’t talk about it – get off your butt and do something about it” attitude. What a refreshing experience it would be to have a government that actually planned what they were going to do, and, then, did it.

                       Modern Whig Party

                                               Service and Solutions

I pick on the Town Of Huntington for a number of reasons. First, it’s my home town. Second, I’ve had it with Washington, so I’m turning my attention to local politics rather than National. Thirdly, I have seen the inner workings of Party politicking in this town, and I am disgusted at the total disregard some folks at the top have for even the most basic of democratic processes. I am also sick and tired of the arrogance that our elected Officials exude. Under our democratic form of governance, they are paid by us and work for us; not the other way around. Election Day is fast upon us, so I will try my best in the allotted time to voice my displeasure with the status quo.