Tom Boylan MIA Whither Tom Boylan?

In November 2017, Tom Boylan ran for Madison County Supervisor to represent Wards 4, 5, and 6 in the city of Oneida. I voted for Tom and I’m a constituent, at least I think I am.

Tom took office in January of 2018. His record of attendance and participation is curious, and it’s not clear if he resides in the city of Oneida, or New York state for that matter. In 2018 Tom “attended” nine meetings via teleconference, i.e. Skype or some other electronic means. In 2019 he “attended” a committee meeting on Jan. 3 in the same manner.

In his 12 month tenure in the Madison County Board of Supervisors, he’s attended about one third of meetings in person, missed about one third of the meetings, and “attended” the remainder by remote electronic means. No other member of the Board of Supervisors participated via teleconference during the same period.

The NYS Open Meetings Law permits attending and participating in meetings by board members remotely by teleconferencing, although the same law seems to require board minutes to indicate from what remote location the member was participating. Madison County board minutes do not.

So, where’s Tom? The Florida Division of Corporations shows an Edward Boylan and Associates corporation with a registered agent named Thomas Boylan in West Palm Beach, Fla., and a mailing address at a post office box in Wampsville, N.Y. Maybe it’s just a coincidence, right?

As I said, I voted for Tom and expected he’d be in Oneida to represent me, so I’m a little disappointed if he moved to Florida, especially since he didn’t take me with him. Enjoy the Sunshine State!

USA not ready for ‘socialist’ society

I believe that the new “Democratic Socialist” members of the US Congress have their hearts in the right place, but not their heads. Like them, I too believe that our federal government should do more and spend more to help make the lives of our citizens better, just like our traditional allies do. However, there has never been a truly “socialist” economy in the history of the world which was ever able to produce enough wealth to meet the survival needs of its citizens. So, it is foolish to call yourself a socialist. You are just giving conservatives a new insult and put-down to call you.

A lot has been said about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s proposal to tax the INCOME of those earning over $10 million/year by 70 percent. The problem with this is that we need to start seriously taxing WEALTH because that’s where we can get enough revenue to pass a Canadian-style national health insurance program to cover and greatly help 99 percent of Americans. If we would tax the net-wealth and networth of all individuals with a net-worth of $10 million and over by 10 percent, we would raise MANY times more revenue than what Ocasio-Cortez proposes. “USA Today” newspaper endorsed the passage of a “National Wealth Tax” on July 31, 2018.

It is possible that we might have a much more equal and a truly “socialist” society one day, but that day is at least 1,000-2,000 years away. We will all have to evolve and transform spiritually, emotionally, and mentally into much more loving, caring, empathetic, compassionate, giving, and altruistic human beings before we are ready for that.

Right now, we are simply too individualistic, too materialistic, too selfish, too selfcentered, too self-absorbed, too “full of ourselves”, and too much into believing that we are “all that” for it to work.

Because, as philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin has observed, humankind is presently at the spiritual, emotional, and mental level of a 12 year-old child. Sometimes I think that it is more like a 7 year-old child.

And, I include myself in that because every day I fall short of being the kind of human being that I can be and should be. And I also make mistakes every day of my life. So, I am not judging anyone else here.

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