What I said.

I was recently quoted in the article, "Valley tax scandals in spotlight; thefts, improprieties in towns breed mistrust", that was published in the New Haven Register on Sept 2. The Register quoted me correctly and used my quote appropriately but I still felt a pang because the need for editing, by any newspaper, waters down one's thoughts. Below are the 4 questions from the New Haven Register together with my unedited answers:

Q1. What do you think can be done to prevent anything like this from happening again?

Ans: For prevention we need to review our outstanding audit findings (and every city and town has outstanding findings) and shore up any holes.

Q2. How have these scandals affected the reputation of your town/city?

Ans: I don’t think it has affected any single town’s reputation but it has eroded trust, even more, in the local government system, deserved or not.

Q3. As a taxpayer, do you feel betrayed by these events, and have you lost faith in the people entrusted to handle your taxes?

Ans: I don’t feel betrayed and I haven’t lost the faith because I know that the people entrusted to handle our taxes are, for the most part, hardworking honest people.

Q4. How rare do you think something like is, espcecially effecting three (actually, four Valley towns with Oxford) almost hitting at the same time?

Ans: It’s not a coincidence that it hit us all at the same time. Oxford’s problem came out first with their Tax Collector and that caused all of the other towns, and some of the local newspapers, to take a closer look at their own operations, and so the dominoes started to fall. It’s human nature ... we get complacent, things start going awry, we notice it, we look around and find other related issues, we fix it, and we start all over again.