| Author |
Message |
    
Bix
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 6, 2001 - 4:26 pm: |     |
Dave, you have a yard? Sheer extravagance! We have to get up at the crack of dawn walk up and down every street in town with an empty bottle. We pour every remnant of every bottle from the recycling bins into the bottle, and if we're lucky, we get to drink the swill before we're beaten to sleep with a coal shovel.
B|X |
Ihateice
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 6, 2001 - 4:33 pm: | |
Mem...no need for apologies. You have every right to make whatever comment you want.
Just for the record. I also live on the westside and my taxes are going up considerably but the reval was fair and there's no way I can fight it. I'm just going to forget about it and pay it. You can't fight city hall so why even try?
To all of you who made nasty comments. Congrats to you! This is a board for free speach and I'm glad to see everyone (including me) uses it. I'm sorry Mammabear got a warning. I didn't mind the personal attack. I can take it as well as dish it out.....happy shoveling! |
Dave
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 6, 2001 - 4:40 pm: | |
Oh, we dreamed of having a bottle!
We had to create cups out of twigs and leaves held together by bird droppings. And when I said yard, well it's a yard if you consider a 3 foot wide swath of astroturf tacked down in the center of Valley St. a yard. Then with all the waking up and having to move when cars are coming.... |
Bix
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 6, 2001 - 4:53 pm: | |
What I wouldn't give for the epicurean delight of bird droppings!! Ambrosia!! For dinner, we had to get up an hour before we went to bed and lick Springfield Avenue clean till holes wore through our tongues. We once stoned my brother for accidentally consuming bird droppings without sharing with the rest of us (there were 14 living in a pothole on Burnett). |
Mem
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 6, 2001 - 4:58 pm: | |
Astroturf! Luuuuuxury! I live in an empty wine box at the bottom of Maplewood duck pond. I wake up before I go to sleep to collect stray bread crumbs meant for the ducks. I don't know what I'm going to do after I start paying higher taxes. Move to Yorkshire I guess. |
Dave
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 6, 2001 - 5:25 pm: | |
Would that we had tongues to wear holes through! Our tongues were torn from us by rabid pit bulls who chased us out of our sewer pipe. We have to communicate with one another by banging out morse code with our heads against a cement slab in an underground tunnel. |
Mem
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 6, 2001 - 5:59 pm: | |
Pit bulls? Heads to bang against cement slabs? More luuuuuxury. I hunted a pit bull down once, and lived on it for a year. It was hard stuffing it down my open neck since my head had been torn off by tax collectors. |
Dave
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 6, 2001 - 6:14 pm: | |
Head torn off by tax collectors? That would be like a sunny day to me. I was completely dismembered by a marauding band of insurance salesmen, who then shipped my limbs to islands off the Malay peninsula, where they were cooked and served as satay by customs officials at the duty-free store with a peanut/coconut sauce. Imagine my dismay to learn that was the one item not covered in my policy! |
Mem
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 6, 2001 - 6:28 pm: | |
So, a nice, luuuuuuxurious tropical vacation in the South Pacific, huh? I was abducted by aliens, who amputated my brain (what was left of it) after running over my body with a steamroller to pave the moon with, and then forced to live on Uranus for a whole year where the taxes were evaluated and raised 3.10% on a daily basis. I hate when that happens. That's why I don't mind my wine box palace here in Maplewood THAT much. At least we have recycling and SUVs here. |
Dave
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 6, 2001 - 6:33 pm: | |
Ihateice,
on a more serious note (if that's possible now):
We try to minimize personal attacks because while it's nice to be as "open" as possible I've seen too many community message boards become horrible places by not being moderated in some form. Attacks become attacks and soon it's a free-for-all.
Your initial post wasn't a personal attack because no one person was the target. Mammabear's was considered more of one because it was aimed at you. Had Mammabear called your post moronic rather than you as a person then I wouldn't have said anything. Yet, I can think of many other ways to convey that information without using that word.
These aren't hard and fast rules. Just judgment calls. But I try to be somewhat consistent.
Regardless of your not minding attacks, I want to react the same way across the board or at least attempt to.
I'm glad everyone is cool now. OK, talk amongst yourselves.
Dave |
Dave
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 6, 2001 - 6:36 pm: | |
Mem,
I give up! You win! There's no competing with alien abductions. Wait... I smell something. I think your Chateau Sneaker Grand Cru is in its secondary fermentation! |
Eb1154
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 6, 2001 - 6:51 pm: | |
I haven't seen an answer to my question about the reductions for "busy streets" yet. Let me tell you that I spoke with a Boyden Ave resident who requested a review and questioined the "busy street" reduction. We all know that Boyden Ave. has more traffic than Wyoming, Jefferson, and Maplewood Ave. combined and yet her reduction was only $700.00, yes that's right $700.00. I heard that the reductions for the other streets were $20k to $50K. So, please don't tell me that the "eastsiders" were underassessed or given any type of a break!
Here's a quote from Mayor DeLuca "I don't believe anyone was overpaying, we had a set of rules and we all played by them" and while I didn't quite want to hear this, I had to agree. But, these same rules are in effect now and yet those whose taxes were increased don't want to play by the same rules. Here's another quote (unsure who said it first but I know who is following it now)"if you can't win then change the rules so you can."
Sorry if I didn't get the Mayor's quote word for word but that was the gist of it. |
Mem
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 6, 2001 - 6:56 pm: | |
Dave,
Cheers! And thanks for the laughs. I don't know how much farther I could have gone with our luxury skit. I'll send some Sneaker Cabernet over as soon as I strain the cat hairs out of it. |
Interalia
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 6, 2001 - 6:58 pm: | |
Ihateice: When I read your post this morning I was livid and thought it best to keep my mouth shut for fear of being censored (or worse yet...banned!) I went to work and just now checked in. Obviously, it's nice to know that either cabin fever or just plain exhaustion from all these heated, opinionated discussions can cause a thread of creative, lively and funny dialogue. Very refreshing and uplifting.
Ice, you took a lot of heat today; I was glad I shut up. Anyway, (and seriously) I don't own a SUV; After 19 years I do know for a fact that living at the top of a hill that sometimes doesn't get plowed before the schools let out at 3:00 requires at least front wheel drive...and oftentimes I made it up that hill sideways with kids aboard. Anyway, some cars cost more than SUV's so....
Now, on the wine subject...."let's take that outside!"
Sometimes my kids sneakers cost too much. I think it is my right, as a working individual, to spend my money as I choose...isn't that the point.
I chose this town because I think it is a great place to raise my kids (and myself!). I work sometimes more than five days a week, live on the 'westside', make a good living, but really find it obscene that this reval will cause me to have to chose between funding my retirement plan or paying property taxes.
Mtierney is a perfect example of how unfair this all is. M. raised a family in this town. M. didn't sell his/her house and move to warmer places. He/her chose to stay near his/her kids and live on what must be fixed income. Now his/her options are narrowed. Townie thinks he/she should move to another house in Maplewood. Maybe Mtierney has ties to the house he/she raised his/her children in. That was always my dream...to see my kids come back with their kids to the (beautiful) house I raised them in (AND WAS HOME).
We work hard to make a good living and a good life. I compromise plenty. If there was a natural disaster (an act of g-d) and I had to change my life to survive...well, I agree maybe I would stop drinking wine!
But this is all about people deciding it is time to fix a problem that apparently started a long time ago, and frankly, several of the TC members were on the TC a long time ago....so
I will continue to buy my kids $125 sneakers; and drink my wine; and not drive an SUV; BECAUSE there is something called 'crossing the line' and this new taxation is exactly that. |
Mtierney
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 6, 2001 - 8:10 pm: | |
Interalia - thank you. The house we raised our 4 kids is our HOME.
On a lighter note: I always preferred ShoeTown for the whole family and mourned its passing. Payless never worked for me. |
Ffof
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 6, 2001 - 8:19 pm: | |
Ahhhh, the american dream....it's alive...it's alive!
C'mon now, group hug...hey, watch it, you you you're spilling my Ripple!!!! |
Townie
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 6, 2001 - 8:48 pm: | |
Yo, Interalia:
I've never said Mtierney should move to another house in town. Not my style. You're mixing me up with somebody else. People have sometimes said that people who can't afford the new taxes will be forced out of town, and like others, I may have noted that there nice homes for $300K still available in Maplewood, but I would never tell someone I don't know to move. Not mad at you. Just being tidy.
kathleen |
Interalia
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 6, 2001 - 8:55 pm: | |
Townie (Kathleen): Sincerest apologies. I either read a lot of these posts when I get home from work or in between (at work). It was in fact Nakaille's suggestion. Her right, my misrepresentation (at your expense). Please accept my deepest apologies. |
Interalia
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 6, 2001 - 9:02 pm: | |
Ffof: No need for the Ripple. Try Shopper's World on Millburn Ave. at the corner of Morris Tpke (near Scotty's). Great prices/sales. Life is too short. |
Ffof
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 6, 2001 - 9:12 pm: | |
They know be my name...i mean they know me by name...(hic) |
|