At a time when the Fed is bailing out investment banks to prevent a collapse of the system and the state is looking for even more ways to cut a budget already hanging in shreds, what are we doing here in Ramapo to keep the tax wolves from our doors? We’re buying time. Literally, buying time with property tax money.
 

You might have noticed those new four-sided street clocks that have showed up around Ramapo. Those clocks actually cost more than $30,000 apiece. We have counted eight of them, but documents from Town Hall show only seven as new purchases in the last two years. Average cost is $30,725.71, and with the installation (building a base, setting up the wiring, and providing a crane for the installers) adding another $2,000, the total begins to close in on almost a quarter-million taxpayer dollars.

All of these very expensive fixtures are programmed to chime on the half-hour and to play a recorded message from Christopher P. St. Lawrence wishing you a "lovely day."

There are responsible fiscal decisions and there are bad fiscal decisions—and then there’s the completely unexplainable. Smack your forehead and take a look at what we could’ve had for that $200 grand plus:

The usefulness of the new ChrisClocks is questionable because the reliance on public timepieces pretty much left the scene with the arrival of wristwatches. As I drive by these clocks, I’m already covered. I have a digital clock on my dashboard, a wristwatch that’s visible, if I have my left hand on the wheel, a cell-phone with the correct time, a PDA synched up to an atomic clock in Colorado, and the guy on the radio is constantly reminding me of the time he sees on his studio clock. And now, I’ve got an additional $32,000 of redundancy on the side of the road. Are you kidding--all the devices I’m carrying or surrounded by didn’t cost that all together, and one has the most accurate time available (free) from the U.S. Naval Observatory while another has four wheels and takes me places.

If the clocks were intended, as I suspect, to increase the public presence of one particular elected official, a kind of perpetual, off-season campaigning, I don’t think the public should have to pay for it. I didn’t make a contribution to St. Lawrence’s last campaign, and I’m not sending anything for the next one—and these clocks are only part of the reason why. It’s bad enough the public has to foot the bill for all the mailings coming out of Town Hall at election time, but these talking ChrisClocks are obscene, not only because of what they cost, but also for what they were, apparently, intended to do.

St. Lawrence and his Board could have solarized the entire Town Hall building for what they spent on these clocks. The $229,000 clock bonanza could have bought more than 140 Sanyo 3 x 4ft. HIP-195 solar panels and 5 SMA converters, installed. Eliminate the Town’s electric bill at Town Hall, or tell everyone to have "a lovely day" 336 times a day? What do you think?

Even if they did nothing, the supervisor and board could have just collected a quarter million dollars less in taxes from an already embattled constituency. The Supervisor knows as well as any of us how burdensome taxes can be. He is currently still $11,000 in arrears in his own tax payments and has complained publicly about how hard it is to have kids in college and keep up with payments. So what was he thinking?

I noticed the following lines in the contract with the clock manufacturer:

Section III B. CUSTOM VOICE ANNOUNCEMENTS--"Purchaser (that’s you and me and the Supervisor) shall provide manufacturer with voice recordings for 3 voice greetings not to exceed 2 minutes for each recording."

Since Christopher P. St. Lawrence has already recorded his custom announcement, what if we do this with the other two? The Board, (Stein, Friedman, Hunter, and Yager) can do a two-minute barbershop intro from "Here Comes the Sun," and I would like to record a third message from the neighbors. I promise that I will keep it under 2 minutes. It will be succinct. Very succinct.

For those who have not experienced the relentless greeting on these clocks, click the image below and turn on your computer’s speakers. There’s a long 45-second delay from the carillon to the greeting. I don’t know why there’s such a long delay, but take a listen. Please excuse the "cinéma vérité" shake in the camera. This particular clock is installed next to Lake Suzanne in Monsey. (Be patient, it takes a few minutes to load, and the actual greeting is about halfway through the play.)