"Send in the Clowns" is a song by Stephen Sondheim from the 1973 musical A Little Night Music. It is a ballad from Act II in which the character Desirée reflects on the ironies and disappointments of her life.
The "clowns" in the title do not refer to circus clowns. Instead, they symbolize fools, as Sondheim explained in a 1990 interview:
I get a lot of letters over the years asking what the title means and what the song's about; I never thought it would be in any way esoteric. I wanted to use theatrical imagery in the song, because she's an actress, but it's not supposed to be a 'circus'.... [I]t's a theater reference meaning 'if the show isn't going well, let's send in the clowns'; in other words, 'let's do the jokes.' I always want to know, when I'm writing a song, what the end is going to be, so 'Send in the Clowns' didn't settle in until I got the notion, 'Don't bother, they're here' which means that 'We are the fools.
In a 2008 interview, Sondheim further clarified:
How appropriate for a title of the last Board of Supervisors meeting.As I think of it now, the song could have been called 'Send in the Fools.' I knew I was writing a song in which Desirée is saying, 'aren't we foolish' or 'aren't we fools'? Well, a synonym for fools is clowns, but 'Send in the Fools' doesn't have the same ring to it.
The meeting as usual started off at the Courthouse, the room quickly filled.
The high school auditorium filled in anticipation of an interesting meeting.
Parade of Improvement Association minions take up majority of meeting and push citizen comments and other important business to nearly 1 AM.
NO One, NO ONE, Mr. Fly, Joe and Jane Citizen, NO ONE has
ever denied the fact that the Improvement Association has done and does do good
work for the carefully selected needy of those within their area of coverage.
WHAT is questioned and what many forget including Mr. Tyler and those who
paraded up in front of the Board Thursday evening and previously is that Sussex
County is in a fiscal crisis and every dollar appropriated MUST be evaluated
against every other dollar. The Improvement Association’s allocation is not the
only program that received cuts. Maybe next budget session IF things are better
they will see an increase, why don’t they understand this????? I still don’t understand
how just by rattling off a statement prior to making a speech why it is that Mr.
Tyler is allowed to (from his seat as chair of the BOS) vote and debate on such
matters. When the State budget was in a fiscal crisis we had 2 past Governors’
elect to take a pay cut to help, HAS TYLER ever thought of cutting his very
good salary (he has stated over and over “I make more than $10,000 in salary….”
according to tax records it’s a lot closer to $90,000 than it is $10,000) or
the salary of the other employees???? If I recall correctly they spend more
than 50 % of their several million dollar budget on salaries … NOT on the
programs to help those need folks they so proudly talk about.
So Tyler and Caple get off your deleterious campaign to resurrect
your $15 G and begin to refocus on ALL the citizens of the county. I am positive
when fiscal times are better you will see funding appropriated with the full board’s
approval for many programs recently cut like YOUR Improvement Association.
Well just like the meeting it seems this posting has been derailed
by Improvement Association discussion. Like Paul Harvey said “Now the rest of
the story”.
The evening started off at the courthouse with a public
meeting about the old landfills and the monitoring of the ground water. $60,000 a year just to monitor the two old
landfills !!
The court room was not filled up during the presentation but
during it more and more citizens began showing up for the regular meeting and
it was soon evident that the meeting would need to be moved. Once again, County
Administrator Tom Harris with his foresight had made arrangements for the HS auditorium
to be available. As the crowd was being told that the meeting was to be moved, the Board decided to go into closed session to
discuss an issue or two all in an attempt to save time. While this had good
intentions was this a legal move? How could they go into a closed session without
having approved an agenda for the meeting which called for such a closed
session? With a Board that gets so hung up on details when it’s in their best
interest, singly or as a group, how is it this “minor detail” was overlooked??
After the move …. It’s now almost 8:30 PM or so.
After some standard meeting business there was a
presentation on the Rt. 460 Bypass. Folks, this is a done deal and without an internal
collapse on the folks driving this, IT
WILL BEGIN construction in 2014 if not sooner. The Board of Supervisors passed
a motion to look into possible ways to oppose at a cost of $20,000 but this I
am afraid is a bit too little too late.
THE PARADE BEGINS ….
For exactly 1 hour and 25 minutes, a well-planned (by whom ???? Mr Tyler ?????) and orchestrated parade of Improvement Association
employees and supporters appeared before the Board. My opening comments covered
this but I would like to add what other organization would have been afforded this
opportunity???? The parade began at 10:10
pm and ended at 11:35 pm. Then the
Empowerment Ministry in Waverly presented a request for $15,000 to build
restrooms, water fountains, and install fencing around their newly built
basketball courts. One Supervisor had
already asked this organization to wait until next year to make this
presentation when they were starting budget plans, but they were encouraged by
others to go ahead with the presentation.
A set up was in the make and as usual the vote was 3-3! While a worthy endeavor, if the County ever
funds this request, then where is the separation between Church and State and
since when does taxpayer money go to a Church?
Then finally the agenda goes to the payment of the Lawyer’s
fees. County Attorney Packer had written
a memo detailing the authority of County Administrator Harris and the fact that
Mr. Harris had contracted the attorneys for the County and was authorize to
make payments up to $15,000 without Board approval. So, Mr. Harris paid the bill !! Needless to say, Chairman Tyler was not
pleased and made several comments before and after this regarding the ability
of the County Administrator and would have to see if their regulations could be
changed to weaken the authority of the County Administrator.
Bottom line, Tyler does not want the County Administrator to
hire, fire, engage in contracts, and pay bills.
Tyler wants to have control over all these things so that he can hire
his friends, fire his enemies and pay who he wants to or not even pay them if
they are owed money. If Tyler does not
agree with something, his first comment is about how he needs that policy
changed. If it is something he wants,
then he parades people before the Board to voice their support for a particular
person or organization. Some of the
people that he brings before the Board are not citizens of this County but are
given more opportunity and time to speak than the tax-paying citizens of the
County.
Let the County Administrator be the County Administrator and
do the job for which he was hired !!
Then we are at nearly 1:00 am and Tyler states that it is
time to adjourn the meeting without public citizen comments. This did not go over well with the few
remaining audience members and we were given our time to speak whether they
heard it or not, but got our comments on the record.
I have grouped the videos from the meeting into groups. I hope this helps in your viewing of them.
Crater Planning 2.AVI http://youtu.be/cKlKBMsjdS0
Attorney's fees 1.AVI http://youtu.be/jZ04COzFhu4
98%
Your comments about the evening are well stated and accurate. One can only hope that Tyler and Caple read this blog.(Truth be known they probably don't know what a blog is and would want a retreat or committee to find out!) I was one of the citizens that wished to speak that night but finally had to leave at 11:30pm. Tyler's so obvious with his need to control and he seems to love to hear himself talk. It's a travesty that non-county citizens are afforded time to talk and the county citizens are almost last on the agenda! Thank goodness for the Sussex and Surry Dispatch and their willingness to allow the citizens to write and speak their minds.
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