This is an excerpt from the current post at pipenozzle.com, reprinted here with permission:

Alan Ackley is angry. He’s not getting his way, and he’s going to kick and scream and hold his breath until he turns blue. He and the Ackleyites asked the voters for $3.5 million to run the Poquonnock Bridge Dire District into the ground by the end of 2013, but it turns out the mill rate the district board set was actually for $4.1 million. There’s more. The district has another $650,000 in the budget from FY2013 for the new pumper they are no longer going to buy, and that kicks the total available cash for FY2014 up to $4.75 million, not to mention the $154,000 from the Town of Groton to protect public property and schools, not to mention a few thousand more from sundry sources.

Oh well. The governor won’t let Ackley bankrupt the district, anyway, so he might as well go back to the voters to get approval for the money he’s actually collecting for emergency services due to a calculation error, and money allocated for the new pumper that he’s now calling a “surplus” to put a positive spin on his continued bungling. But rather than admit that he made a big mistake and take credit for correcting the error of his ways, Ackley can’t stop his tantrums. He’s shutting down the Fort Hill firehouse, he’s phasing out street alarms, he’s using the pickup truck for medical runs, and he’s still taking the labor board decision to court to challenge the union contract. And in September he wrote an imbecilic little letter to the other Groton fire departments whining about not having enough money to provide mutual aid, a letter he has yet to withdraw to avoid stepping once again into a legal and political quagmire. . . .