I attended the Mayor’s presentation of the “State of the City” on Thursday which was held at the Westfield Senior Center. This was my first time meeting and listening to the Mayor. I would like to commend him on giving a frank and truthful presentation. I was very impressed with his thoughts and came away with a much more positive impression of his abilities. Good job Mr. Mayor !
I just received tonight’s paper, this is Friday, and “Council to raise mayor’s salary.” Why should he get a raise? We’ve all got money taken away from us with a raise in taxes, real estate taxes, and federal and all the rest of the taxes that they’ve raised. I don’t think he should get a raise and I don’t think the rest of them should, neither. I think they’re spending way too much money anyway in this city. And we’re going to pay for it. And people haven’t got that money to pay for it. I think it’s about time that we stopped all these high salaries. He wants a $10,000 pay raise? C’mon – get a life! Put that in the PusleLine. Let him see it. Thank you.
Yes, reading about the “Council will raise mayor’s salary” in Westfield: I don’t think he deserves it, for one thing, or the city council. This is not the time to start giving out pay raises, when the money is so tight. And, like I mentioned before, Mayor Knapik doesn’t deserve it. He’s a spender, like the big guys in Boston and in Washington and that’s where he belongs. He doesn’t belong in Westfield. Thank you.
Hello. Just calling about the night I had tonight. It was Friday night and I had the occasion to go see an Irish concert at the Agawam Senior Center. It was free and it was packed. That place is huge and beautiful. It has two floors and it’s gigantic in there. They have everything they could possibly want or need. Then, where is Westfield’s Senior Center? It’s a small little whole in the wall and I was there once and it was depressing. And they’ve been talking about a senior center for Westfield for what –the last 30 years? And here we still are with nothing. Everyone has gorgeous senior centers. Southwick is expanding theirs. Theirs wasn’t that great but it was kind of nice and clean. But they’re expanding it now. This is the second one that they have and Westfield doesn’t have any. What is the story? The politicians can get raises, raises, raises and everything else can happen. If it wasn’t for the Fursts the kids would have nothing, either. We have nothing in this town, except taxes, taxes and more taxes. You can visit this link for Dan Moriarty’s latest story from a month ago on the status of Westfield’s new senior center: https://thewestfieldnews.com/senior-center-site-issue-goes-to-court
To the person who asked about the price of the bicycle on the clock. Don’t make smart mouth comments if you can’t take the smart mouth responses. Keep up the good work Westfield News!
Hi Patrick, I’m emailing you with some PulseLine thoughts. I recently attended Mayor Knapik’s State of the City talk and also read the budget column in your paper and there are a few things I want Westfield residents to know if they don’t already before his next meeting. First, statewide, teachers are exempt from state income taxes. How is this possible? In today’s world where local governments are struggling financially think of how much money would come in to the state if teachers joined the rest of the real world. Also with teachers, the mayor indicated that when a new teacher is hired it is in their contract that they get mandatory raises each year for their first 7 years of employment. It’s a similar situation with all the city’s union employees. Who negotiates these contracts? Lastly, the city really needs to get pensions and lifelong health care for city employees under control. Pass a law that any new employee hired after July 1st joins a 401k savings plan and when someone retires they should get medicare like other retirees. This is what the business world is doing and municipalities need to rethink policy and procedure to maintain sustainability.
