10 December—The big news is that yesterday, 9 December, at high noon Dirk Patterson officially and formally retired and resigned as Warden of the Borough of Litchfield Board of Warden and Burgesses (BOLBOWAB; or, more exactly, WOTBOLBOWAB). I had the pleasure and privilege of being on the phone with Dirk at that significant and fateful moment in history.

Readers probably won’t recall that Dirk had announced his intention to resign and retire at no specific date at a special BOLBOWAB meeting on 31 August, which I dutifully reported on 1 September. He made it official and named the date at a special meeting on 7 December, another significant and fateful date in American history.

Having heroically and selflessly stepped up to lead the imperiled Borough of Litchfield (BOL) through the turmoil and mercenary onslaught of Chabad Lubavitach of Litchfield County Inc.’s predatory lawyers, Dirk managed single-handedly—and with considerable personal sacrifice—to save BOL taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees demanded but not deserved by Chabad’s high-end ambulance chasers.

Thus, at the very least, Dirk Patterson has earned his retirement as well as the wholehearted, undying gratitude of BOL taxpayers. Sad to say, the BOL charter doesn’t provide for a Borough of Litchfield Medal of Honor (BOLMOH), for Dirk most certainly would be a—or the—most deserving recipient.

With the warden’s retirement, the responsibility of leading and protecting the BOL devolves to the senior burgess, who now, in addition to maintaining that position, becomes the Acting Warden (AW). At this time, that would be and in fact is Gayle Carr. We hope AW Gayle Carr is more responsible with BOL finances, among other things, than she has been with her own WPCA (a.k.a. Sewer Commission) fees, which at this writing are seriously in arrears . . .