Beyond the South End

This is the first part of Ted’s column which contained the story that led to a letter from Andy Rooney. It describes what the city was worried about at that time. You may remember Ted’s gentle poking of the city’s government. This column appeared January 9-10, 1982. I suspect that the coffee shop across the street was where he got some of this information.

The best story we heard this week concerns Yankee common sense.

The city owns the former K-L Feeds Inc. property in the southend which has fallen into some disrepair and is easily accessible by inquisitive youngsters. A while ago, one youth climbed up a ladder inside the building, fell off and was injured. There have been indications a lawsuit against the city may result from the incident.

This has prompted officials to consider methods of securing the property against trespassers to avoid future problems. Among suggestions were to board up all possible entrances to discourage entry into the building. Another possibility was erecting a fence around the property.

News accounts of these possibilities prompted a resident to call Councilor Jean Chalmers. The caller said her mother had an idea which would discourage youths from climbing around inside the building. Why didn’t the city just cut off the ladder.

God bless these Yankees and their common sense. We love ‘em.

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The flap this week between the personnel board and the city manager over the appointment of a fire department lieutenant prompted another call to us.

In case you missed it, the board was ripped that Manager Harold Parks decided to re-interview lieutenant candidates after the board had made its decision. Parks was assisted by Fire Chief Ernest Daye and Camden Chief Robert Oxton. Board members termed this an affront to their integrity and said the matter reeked of politics. One member claimed the applicant had already been chosen and the board’s function of screening applicants was merely an exercise in futility. The manager denied all this and said he was only trying to make the best appointment for the city. As of the end of the week, there had been no announcement of an appointment.

But back to the other development. We were advised that Daye had spent several hundred of the taxpayers’ bucks to install a fancy remote control door opener on bay five of the fire station so he could drive his private vehicle in and out of the station with ease. His station wagon, by the way, is also equipped as an emergency vehicle.

Well, we sought out the chief for an explanation. He told us that all doors at the fire station were already equipped with automatic door openers which are controlled by the man sitting in the dispatch room. But since the room is unmanned during periods of the day and night, and Daye is frequently in and out of the station on not only department business, but code office work, he said (my copy here is undecipherable so I’ll guess that the chief said he really needed the remote control for the above reasons.)

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The city tax office is preparing its list of delinquent taxpayers to be published. While there is no word on just how many names will be published in the paper, it appears that it will again be more than 200.

Finance Director David Hodges said that as of Dec. 31, the city was owed $329,000 in outstanding 1981 taxes. This compares with $300,000 which was uncollected at year’s end, 1980.

While the city was owed more at the end of 1981 than the previous year, the percentage of collections was slightly higher, as taxes in 1981 were $620,000 more than 1980.

At the end of 1980, the city had collected 90.5 percent of its $3.2 million in taxes. At the conclusion of 1981, the collection rate was 91.5 percent of the $3.8 million tax bill.

Still, $329,000 is a pretty good piece of change for the rest of the city’s taxpayers to carry.