Budget battles galore

Big Brother was watching them. Judge Makowski ruled that the leg has the right to force cuts in jobs; not Joel. Ok. So, the leg held hearings to help determine where and who should be cut. The heads of departments not controlled by HRH Joel I showed up - Naples, Clark, Swarts, and Gallivan. They laid it on the line for the leg, and explained what and who could be cut, and what could not. Some, like Swarts, suggested a completely new way to do county business. That's thinking outside the box - the kind of thing we need desperately around here. But Joel Giambra was firmly entrenched in his box. With the lid shut. Airtight. HRH Joel I, through his Crown Prince Fisher, decreed that departments heads not appear before the legislature unless ordered to do so. The leg was disappointed, indicating that it would have certainly been helpful to hear from the people on the "front lines." But HRH won't have that. Instead, he feels it's more important and productive to heap scorn on the Republican (his own party, mind you) legislators in general, and also on Len Lenihan (!?).

We have had enough games and enough of this foolishness,' said Demone Smith, chairman of the Legislature's Finance and Management Committee. Elected county officials, not under Giambra's control, did show up at Tuesday's meeting in a last-ditch effort to salvage law enforcement and public record-keeping services while harshly rebuking the county leadership. 'I have gone beyond what I believe in to try and accommodate this,' said Sheriff Patrick M. Gallivan, who put forward a plan to cut his department by $4 million at the expense of abolishing all crime prevention programs and police training. 'This is the bottom line.' "

Elise Cusack recommended an idea to save jobs and money - that county workers take one day off per month unpaid. The head of the union replied that this idea had a "snowball's chance in hell." Jesus Christ, that's the ole Buffalo spirit. Let's sacrifice a thousand jobs to make a fucking ridiculous point of some sort. Cretin.