This view of DanvilleDelivery.com isn’t about the town, the schools, or our community. This is the place where I keep links and information that help me get the most our of each dollar I earn. Posts will be announcements or tutorials and links will to be to persistent bargains and bargain sites. If you know of a bargain site that I haven’t listed, send me a link via the contact page.
We all know that financing your life at 18% is a bad idea, but a credit card can be a useful financial tool. I’ve used 0% transfers to finance Christmas for up to 18 months and Chase cards to save $150 on my PS3 and $150 on my first $300 worth of games and peripherals. I got 1% back on my college education and 5% back on gas when it was $4/gallon. As long as you make payments on time, these deals can work out.
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Mission: The mission of this web page is to inform the people of Danville, New Hampshire. We live in a community that is too small to have a newspaper or tv channel and too big to rely on word of mouth. Events happen that should make us smile, groan, or rebel — and we don’t hear about them. My objective is to make the people of Danville smile, groan, and rebel.
Background: My name is Len Mullen. I live at 39 Justin Drive. I’ve lived at that address since 1990. I like my house. I like my neighbors. I like the people I’ve met as my kids have progressed through the school system, little league, and scouting. For the most part, Danville has been a very pleasant place to raise a family.
Around 2000, I tried to use the government. It was hard. The government was, and is, a word of mouth operation. I wanted to put a pool in my yard and was concerned about set backs, zoning, and electrical code. I wanted to put a wood burning stove in my basement and wondered if I could share one of the flues in my chimney. At a little league game, I heard I could have campfires in my yard if I got the right permit from the right person. Fireworks are legal in New Hampshire. Can we use them in Danville? Do I need a permit? Are there rules? Slowly I learned who I needed to talk to to find out how to do these things properly. I wondered why a taxpayer had to ‘know the right person’ to use the services of the town.
Then I stumbled upon the town’s official web site — http://www.townofdanville.org.I found it attractive, but not very helpful. For the next year or so, I checked this web site each time I had a question. When I did not find my answer, I emailed the webmaster, “I was looking for something on your site and could not find it. I think the answer to this question might be a good thing for you to include on your web site.”
This never resulted in improvement, but, eventually, I got a response from the webmaster, “If you are so unhappy with the web site, why don’t you help us make it better.” This was a reasonable request and, after much fanfare, I was appointed to the website committee.
I learned a lot about the town of Danville as a member of the committee. We met regularly to discuss the web site — and the town and the government and other committees. I was surprised to learn that the reason that the web site was so sparse was that the members of the various committees were reluctant to provide information. We spent more time scheming to get information from the government than working on the web site. Along the way, we posted volumes of minutes and agendas. Any attempt to post information that would be useful to residents was squashed. The BOS was against it, the performing organization was against it, there was risk…very frustrating. Eventually, the frustration gave birth to a second web site — http://www.speakoutdanville.org. This web site was to be privately funded and free to serve the people. Web pages, blogs, and forums would improve the dialog and engage the public.
Noble beginnings. The web page never got off the ground. The blogs became political soap boxes. The forums thrived, but were quickly annexed by the government and used as a platform to promote various warrants. Instead of serving the people, this site became a platform for politicians who had not yet been elected.
So our small town had two web sites — one was a monument to government and the other was a platform for those who aspired to elective office. I still could not download a permit to build a deck or the rules for installing a filter for my pool.
In 2007, I retired from the website committee and the other web site. I decided to fund and build the web site I wished the town had. Here it is.
DanvilleDelivery.com: What’s in a name? Aside from the alliterative appeal, Danville Delivery is what the school calls a folder that comes home with the kids each week. It’s a great idea — papers and communications to help parents keep up with school and community happenings. Check your child’s folder each week to stay on top of what’s going on at the school. Got a question? Put it in the folder.
This DanvilleDelivery will work just like that — only better. Each day, I’ll collect the information you need and send it home via this web page. If you need some information or have something to share, use the comments and contact links to send it to me.
What about the .com? Why not .org, .net, or .info? .com is the most popular tld (top-level domain). Most browsers will will ‘guess’ www.danvilledelivery.com if you type in danvilledelivery. So, I hoped to make it easy to find the page. I’m also open to the idea of offsetting costs with ads if the opportunity presents itself and I think it would be inappropriate to represent my site as a nonprofit (.org) while collecting fees for ads.
What to Expect: Expect change. Right now, I’m creating a page for me. As time goes on, it will evolve into a page for us. The site launched as a web page. I liked it a lot, but it was a lot of work to manage. Phase II was a WordPress blog. Once I get all the content organized, I’ll make the blog look more like the page — which I liked a lot.
You Can Help: Send me links, letters, photos, menus, and videos. Let me know if you find mistakes. Submit ideas and critiques. I have space for 300 hours of high quality video on this web site. If you video tape a concert, a baseball game, or a meeting, I’ll try to get it up on the web site. If you have cable, and can capture the meetings and/or bulletin board for me on video tape, dvd, or vcd, that would be great.
Contact Information
Len Mullen
39 Justin Drive
Danville, NH 03819
(603) 382-4327
webmaster@danvilledelivery.com
Yes. You need an account to post, but I don’t need to know who you are in order for you to get an account. Click the Contact tab at the top of any DanvilleDelivery.com page. Complete the form and click the Submit Form button. I’ll create the account at my earliest convenience. If you include a valid email address, I’ll email you when the account is created.
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At each of the last two meetings of the Danville Board of Selectmen, the delegate session has featured a resident who has lost their home to the tax collector for taxes owed. I don’t know the curcumstances of their tax delinquency. I’m more concerned with the way each was treated by the Board of Selectmen.
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Subject: 15% Penalty Waiver
The BoS needs to hold off on sending out the letters today and reconsider the motion passed last night.
First, Mr. Moore was right to recuse himself last week and should have abstained from the discussion and vote last night. Instead, he acted as a lobbyist beating down the rest of the selectmen until he could secure special treatment for his friend of 37 years.
Second, the town’s lawyer clearly opposed this action. He should have been on hand — even via nonpublic session — to advise on the specific motion. I’m sure he would have advised against such an accommodation.
Third, any relief proposed by the BoS should be applied without prejudice to all tax delinquents. This measure rewards the worst offenders only. The board was unsympathetic to Mrs. Leonard who has had medical and personal problems, and voted to close the door of preferential treatment on residents who have not yet lost their homes to the tax collector.
It’s clear that most of the selectmen were uncomfortable with this accommodation — none supported this measure until the vote and at least one thought Mr. Moore should have recused himself from the discussion and vote. If Mr. Moore had acted properly, there would have been no vote. If he had participated in the discussion but abstained from the vote, I think it would have been 4-0 against.
Once the BoS sends out these letters, precedent will be set for forgiving the penalties. Last night I talked to a resident who told me that her family had sacrificed two Christmases to pay unexpected tax increases. I don’t think Mr. Moore’s friends have missed too many Christmases.
Len Mullen
39 Justin Drive
Danville, NH 03819
Taxpayer since 1991
Um…must see BoS meetings? They are getting interesting. For the second meeting in a row, the BoS heard from a resident who had lost property due to back taxes. These people have had tax issues for three decades. They claim to be able to pay the taxes but are unwilling to pay penalties. I’m starting to feel like a chump for paying my taxes. I’d like a little small town love too!
Waste Management was in. The post card coming to clarify the error filled flyer also contains errors. Even the selectmen do not understand what can be recycled. Waste Management provided the BoS with educational materials which may be posted to our cable channel and shared with the schools. I applaud the BoS for their forward thinking on this matter. They also asked Waste Management to poke us a little less on for fee pickups. Waste Management will look into it…
Looks like the town is going to increase our cemetery area by 500%. They have their eye on 50 acres. Every acre the town takes for historical, conservation, public buildings, cemeteries, or pounds is an acre that cannot contribute to the tax base. Is there any reason why the town forest cannot surrender a couple acres to a cemetery?
The selectmen discussed increasing the hours of their clerk by 30%. They want her to cross train with other employees and attend meetings. Is this the best time to increase the burden of government? We should be looking to reduce the burden. How about we move the town offices to the basement of the library? We could eliminate bodies being paid to occupy the generally empty part of the library, automate as many tasks as possible (ie., online auto registration), and consolidate all the clerk classifications. We could cross train these clerks to backup the tax collector and town clerk.
Once again the school board came under fire for Mr. La Salle’s firing of the ski coaches. Supporters of the dismissed coaches filled the room. They testified on behalf of the coaches and presented a petition of support from parents. One parent noted that Mary Beth Torosian being a registered nurse saved the district money since her presence made it unnecessary to have a nurse on trips (to accommodate a special needs skier). Mr. La Salle responded that he was not compelled to make unreasonable accommodations. The supporters complained that Mr. La Salle refused to meet with them or even put them on the school board agenda. The take away here should be that the superintendent runs the school board not the other way around.
The school board was completely disengaged and the chair promised only to ‘take their concerns under advisement.’
…all cut our teeth on Atari computers. Steve Jobs quit his job at Atari to found Apple, Bill Gates was fired from Atari, and I played games on an Atari. Of the three, I’m probably the only one who still has a working Atari computer.
This article is a teaser for a future topic on DanvilleDelivery.com. I have a general interest in old computers and a passion for the Atari 8-bit computers. I have a few of these and still enjoy a quick game of River Raid or Bruce Lee from time to time.
I’m posting this here hoping someone with a box of Atari hardware will contact me before tossing it into a landfill. I’m not a collector, per se, but I have quite a collection. At the same time, I hope some former Friends of the Fugi will enjoy thumbing through an old issue of Antic or playing a once favorite game on an emulator.
If you are thinking about resurrecting an Atari computer or buying one, I’d be glad to help.
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Concerned parent of two children in the TRSD school system who pays taxes and is not employed by -- or contracted to -- the town or the SAU...one of the Rest of Us
