My heart's really not in a long post about the budget workshop tonight, with one of our high school students in critical condition at Hasbro. My first thought is with Samantha Kavanagh and her family. Any parent knows in their gut what a horror an event like this is. And no matter what or how strongly you believe, any parent knows that this is the time when you pray. Let's all keep Samantha in our thoughts and prayers this evening.

Because I pretend to be a journalist, I resume.

The budget workshop at Town Hall had about 18 attendees at the beginning, and I stayed for the discussion of the Melville Campground budget, which the Council tentatively approved, after much prodding of Town Admin Bob Driscoll and Campground manager Bill Bryant about the earmarking of receipts for projects at the facility. According to the terms of the deed from the Federal government, funds have to be reinvested in a good-faith effort to maintain that facility if needed, no matter how much the rest of the Town might envy the surplus. Next year, when there are less pressing maintenance needs — the big ticket item this year is a 90K upgrade of the bathhouse — things may be different.

Then I had to skip out to cover the organizational meeting of Preserve Portsmouth, where the group elected a slate of officers, convened the by-laws process, and mapped out strategy. If I were a member of the Town Council, I'd be expecting to get a whole lot more letters and phone calls like the ones people said they've been sending. I also picked up a cool sign, which will just about fit in the narrow patch of "lawn" in front of our cottage. Want one? You can give Connie Harding — the organization's newly minted president — a ring.

Just a side note: I have no organizational affiliation with Preserve Portsmouth. I support their goals, and I will blog about their activities, but I am not a member of their leadership or anything of that sort. Here's why I say this: Not to distance myself from them, but to allow them some distance from me. They are a fundamentally party-blind coalition, aiming at the nonpartisan goal of retaining Portsmouth's unique quality of life. And aiming, consequently, at Target.

You may read this blog because you agree with me about Town politics, but if you don't, please don't assume that the folks at Preserve Portsmouth share my biases. I may sometimes say harsh things about folks on the Council, or in the PCC, and I do not in any way speak for that organization.