The Editor's Notepod, Thur., Sept. 10, 2009

Wallingford: School and town talking again. That’s a good thing. The way it was left Tuesday evening was unfortunate.

Meriden: Speaker Donovan and Health Care for America gather at Community Health Center for a roundtable on reform, including support for the “Public Option.” We’ve endorsed some form of universal health care in the past and it would be a bad mistake if the opposition to reform manages to short circuit the president’s efforts in the area with a meaningless lot of noise about socialism. It’s baloney.

State: one of the best aspects of the budget not signed by Gov. Rell is restoration of the money for Libraries. Because it doesn’t involve public safety or schools, it winds up, again and again, being considered optional. The only way it’s optional is that it’s optional the way thinking is “optional” so long as you can eat, breathe and put out fires.

Meriden: it makes sense, given the uncertainty about ownership of the East Cemetery, to give the neighbors and their existing and assumed usages the benefit of the doubt.

Wallingford: it’s politically popular to turn down a public employee contract which includes wage increases. But the two contracts, which involve small numbers of board of education employees, had included changes which would have resulted in net savings to the board. The council may have the power to overrule the board of education, but this certainly seems an ill-advised decision.