Quote:
Originally Posted by VtSteve
Forget about the one issue we disagree on, and at least make an effort to join in when the other multitude of safety issues comes up. I would think your entire group would support some way of spotlighting the budget problems the MP is having. It directly impacts you.
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Steve,
We disagree on a lot more than one issue. And thanks, but I'll decide which deserves my time and my money and you can decide which deserve yours.
Being from another state, maybe you don't mind seeing more of the NH taxpayers' money thrown at a problem, but I feel our MP get way more funding than they need and that if the personnel of the department were properly managed, they would have plenty of people and money to do their job. But like we are seeing with other state agencies recently, when the answer to every problem has been to raise taxes and throw more money at it, glaring inefficiencies and inadequacies just keep getting covered up and never solved.
It's time to start looking at the MP and figuring out not how we can get them more money, but why they have not been able to their jobs with the plenty of money they have been getting. Remember, this is an agency that basically works four months a year and pays people to do what most people pay big money to do...cruise around Lake Winnipesaukee in a boat. So no, I will not help you argue for more money for them. The problems on Winnipesaukee do not cry out for more money. If you think they deserve more money, make a personal donation.
I am on Lake Winnipesaukee more than most and I see four consistent safety problems; Failure to yield, passing too close while going too fast, BWI, and speeding...in no particular order. Slow boats down and the four of these goes away and the other three become more of a nuisance and less of a danger. While I agree the intent behind the safe-passage rule was good, enforcement is not practical and the law is a joke. I simply do not mind a boat going 20 MPH passing 75 feet away from me. I don't need him slowing to headway speed. But a boat going 90 MPH 155 feet away is still very uncomfortable.
And you don't slow people down by saying "use your own judgment". You slow them down by putting a reasonable limit on speed, then by giving violators cause to obey it. If you are running the MP, you don't tell the go-fast crowd "don't worry about the speed limit, we're not going to enforce it anyway". Yet this is exactly what go-fasters on this forum have reported. Then you say we should give this department more of my hard-earned tax dollars? No way.
We may be from different sides of the political aisle, but I'm very conservative and simply don't buy the notion that more taxes and bigger budgets will solve a problem. Sorry.
Sometimes when you hear crickets, its because someone doesn't agree with you.