Taxpayers of Templeton may be glad to know that through the budget and office hours cut, they saved thousands of dollars in a pay period. (exact number at next selectmen meeting) The selectmen have agreed to send a request to the water department to reimburse the town for the overtime wages of the highway department who worked on the water breaks. The accounting firm hired to close out the 2012 books and look at a few things informed us that the one admin person at the sewer department doing both billing and collection along with receivables is bad and needs to change, more at upcoming selectmen meeting.
Templeton also has about 100 grand due because of people who have failed to pay their taxes. Hopefully the selectmen will get it in gear and instruct the tax collector to send letters informing people that unless you wish to read your name in the newspaper and perhaps on this here blog (it is public information) you need to pay up, Templeton needs the money. There is also a rumor and I will check on this and taxpayers may wish to contact the superintendent of schools as well, the rumor is that since a new gym floor was installed in the middle school gym, taxpayers will have to find a new place to hold elections. I wonder if this rumor is true, if the person (s) making it understand where the money comes from to pay for that floor. Hopefully it is just a rumor.
Some things to let taxpayers know financial hardship are not unique to Templeton. FY 2012 East Bridgewater COA cut budget by 1.5%. Chatam COA cut 2nd outreach worker from 20 hours a week to 11 hours In FY11,Lakeville COA cut 20% from budget and FY11 Mansfield cut 5% from COA budget. Budget cuts happen in all towns and in most departments. Generally, departments and workers in the "not essential" departments and COA is in there, even though many seniors count heavily on it. On a kind of funny and strange event, Templeton resident Kate Fulton called Templeton town counsel directly and asked for an opinion to clarify the town by-law, article 4, section 2, stating she was advised by the DAs office that she could contact the town law firm for the town. I wonder if Kate was planning on paying this bill herself or perhaps the DA will pay for bogus advice, seeing that the selectmen voted to have all legal requests go through Jeff Ritter, Templeton town administrator. That by-law section reads "The moderator of the town meeting when this by-law is adopted shall, within 30 days after said by-law becomes effective, appoint 2 members for terms of one year, 2 members for a term of 2 years and 3 members for terms of 3 years. At each Annual Town Meeting thereafter the Moderator thereof shall appoint 3 members for terms of 3 years. The terms of office of said members shall commence immediately upon qualification and shall expire at the close of final adjourment of the Annual Town Meeting at which their successors are appointed. Said committee shall choose its own officers and shall serve without pay except the chairman who shall receive such amount as voted upon at the Annual Town Meeting and it shall cause to be kept a true record of its proceedings." Fortunately for taxpayers, Templeton's town counsel is no longer Kopelman & Paige, our new town counsel spoke to Jeff Ritter about this and they let Kate know she needs to speak with Jeff Ritter and Templeton was not charged a penny. We may be making some progress, we just need to ensure everyone is playing by the rules. I would like to have the name of the person from the Da office who gave that advice.
just some tid bits from Jeff Bennett
Templeton also has about 100 grand due because of people who have failed to pay their taxes. Hopefully the selectmen will get it in gear and instruct the tax collector to send letters informing people that unless you wish to read your name in the newspaper and perhaps on this here blog (it is public information) you need to pay up, Templeton needs the money. There is also a rumor and I will check on this and taxpayers may wish to contact the superintendent of schools as well, the rumor is that since a new gym floor was installed in the middle school gym, taxpayers will have to find a new place to hold elections. I wonder if this rumor is true, if the person (s) making it understand where the money comes from to pay for that floor. Hopefully it is just a rumor.
Some things to let taxpayers know financial hardship are not unique to Templeton. FY 2012 East Bridgewater COA cut budget by 1.5%. Chatam COA cut 2nd outreach worker from 20 hours a week to 11 hours In FY11,Lakeville COA cut 20% from budget and FY11 Mansfield cut 5% from COA budget. Budget cuts happen in all towns and in most departments. Generally, departments and workers in the "not essential" departments and COA is in there, even though many seniors count heavily on it. On a kind of funny and strange event, Templeton resident Kate Fulton called Templeton town counsel directly and asked for an opinion to clarify the town by-law, article 4, section 2, stating she was advised by the DAs office that she could contact the town law firm for the town. I wonder if Kate was planning on paying this bill herself or perhaps the DA will pay for bogus advice, seeing that the selectmen voted to have all legal requests go through Jeff Ritter, Templeton town administrator. That by-law section reads "The moderator of the town meeting when this by-law is adopted shall, within 30 days after said by-law becomes effective, appoint 2 members for terms of one year, 2 members for a term of 2 years and 3 members for terms of 3 years. At each Annual Town Meeting thereafter the Moderator thereof shall appoint 3 members for terms of 3 years. The terms of office of said members shall commence immediately upon qualification and shall expire at the close of final adjourment of the Annual Town Meeting at which their successors are appointed. Said committee shall choose its own officers and shall serve without pay except the chairman who shall receive such amount as voted upon at the Annual Town Meeting and it shall cause to be kept a true record of its proceedings." Fortunately for taxpayers, Templeton's town counsel is no longer Kopelman & Paige, our new town counsel spoke to Jeff Ritter about this and they let Kate know she needs to speak with Jeff Ritter and Templeton was not charged a penny. We may be making some progress, we just need to ensure everyone is playing by the rules. I would like to have the name of the person from the Da office who gave that advice.
just some tid bits from Jeff Bennett
Jeff can you tell me what happened to the crafting classes at the COA. The calendar shows eating, eating out, cribbage, wood carving and a few other things. we were told there was no money to do craft classes?? sorry but the new senior center seems to be more about "office space" than about programs for us seniors. We need things to do!
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately one of the NOT ALLOWED items on the grant formular contract is arts & crafts supplies, however there is a suggestion in there that a possible way for the COA to generate their own funds is thru advertising in a newsletter, whether this is done already I do not know. This is one of those thigs that may require some "outside the box" thinking. A fund raiser, donations etc. One allowed use of the formula grant contract funds is the buying of supplies, equipment so perhaps rather than using the grant to supplement a salary, use it to by office supplies and use the expense money set aside for that purpose and use it to buy craft supplies. I have an idea and will run it by the organization and see what happens.
ReplyDeletei would not blame the school for not letting you use the gym for voting ..new floor to make it last you need to take care of it and not have every joe going on that floor with street shoes and mud covered boots..and phillipston also paid for that floor also and dose the town need to ask them if Templeton can use the gym ...just my opinion and for the da office is that scrappys wife ????
ReplyDeleteMaybe Kate Fulton should contact town counsel and inquire about the criteria for being classified as legally insane.
ReplyDeleteI would say that if we get another 50 years out of the new floor, the taxpayers got their moneys worth. My point is if the school distric ever wishes to win the taxpayers over and get a budget or an overide passed, they (school distric) needs to be less arrogant (my opinion, my words) and learn to work with the taxpayers. Support for a new elementary school can go away as fast as it appears. just sayin mike. If they put a quality floor in, it should last another 50 years, voting foot traffic and all, in fact that floor should outlast the building!!
ReplyDeleteI have put my name forth as a candidate for the elementary school building committee. There are pros an cons for my candidacy for Elementary school committee.
DeleteI do know the amount of work involved in this type of project and I will make the commitment to see the project through.
For the first part of this project, we need people who have credibility and can rebuild trust with the Town of Templeton. Otherwise, we are DOA.
NRSD needs to start acting as a team player and stop penalizing the community for the override failures.
Just my opinions.
Precisely! I am concerned, though, with pursuing a new building when it's clear the community can not support (for legitimate reasons) an override for basic staffing levels etc. Needless to say, this committee has a lot of work to do!
DeleteI was told that some town officials went to the state house to talk about the school building project . could someone tell me who went and what if anything happened . It would be nice to know who is representing me and my fellow tax payers .
DeleteYeah a couple selectmen, Wilder & Farrel I believe, Kirk Moschetti, Jeff Ritter went to meet Sen. Brewer. If you wish to know who is representing you, please attend selectmen meeting and ask that question, but those are the people I know of.
DeleteThanks Jeff . Well three out of four is better than Wilder going by herself . i hope the hell Virginia Wilder kept her mouth shut .If not were already screwed .
DeleteJulie are you allowed to be on the building committee? I thought part of the recall was not being able to be appointed to anything.
DeleteWhile we're on that subject, let's hope Mr. Stewart appoints people with credibility to the TESBC. The role of this committee is going to be largely public relations and winning the hearts and minds of the taxpayers. O'Brien, Skelton, and Columbus should be kept as far away as possible.
ReplyDeleteI did not request to be on again and gerry skelton did not submit a request according to handout at BOS meeting so there is hope that the board will vote a small number of people who can move it forward.
DeleteThe crafting class at scout hall was stopped due to lack of participation. We are being told by a number off seniors that scout hall is to small and uncomfortable for a lot of activities. In FY2012 I applied for and received a grant for crafting classes, lined up an instructor, choose a project, advertised in the newsletter, but no one signed up, so we returned the grant money. We have received numerous donations of craft supplies, but need talented crafty people to get involved to put them to good use and rekindle the interest.
ReplyDeleteThe new senior center does have more office space and will allow the COA to conduct business more professionally and protect client privacy. However, there is still a lot of space for activities, classes, meals, speakers, clinics, etc. Once we have an operational kitchen we won't have to transport people to other towns for meals. Generally when an activity is planned that requires transportation we include stopping at a restaurant for lunch as part of the activity.
I would encourage you to come in and visit Scout Hall and see for yourself how inadequate it is for conducting business and hosting activities. I think you will agree Templeton is long overdue for a new senior center.
If you have ideas or suggestions for classes, activities, or projects I would love to hear from you. We also need volunteers to help teach classes and run activities. The monthly newsletter is sent to all seniors in town and we would like to see more local businesses put in ads. The senior center is a valuable resource for the community, but is only valuable when the community gets involved.
Dianna Morrison
Volunteer Activity Coordinator
978-632-4592
Dianna, you are crafty so you may need to step forward! Perhaps your blog answered the above blog from Anonymous. But I believe the senior center can always use donations or help with projects and such.
ReplyDeleteI want us taxpayer to be able to ask questions of the people that want to be on the committee - they are representing us after all!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteThat is why you elect selectmen, but it is up to the chairman to recognize and allow people to speak
DeleteStop in, have a cup of coffee leave a donation and thank Dianna and Doug for the vehicle donation to the town (at Assessors office)
ReplyDeleteSometime in September, around the 24th, look for a ruling from the attorney generals office if it is legal to have a by-law or town meeting article to ban selectmen from serving on other boards or committees. One Massachusetts paased such an article at town meeting and are now waiting on AG decision. The probably have to watch for appeals but it may lead the way for the same thing to happen here in Templeton.
ReplyDeleteTime to be remembering who was responsible for the wasteing of alot of taxpayer money, spending twice for 2 law firms in the middle of a month, 14 thousand dollars to fire jeff Ritter, the waste of money spent on carol skelton, messing with town meeting articles, signing away $220.00 bucks of taxpayer money and don't forget those shananigans in Winchendon. Time is fast approaching to decide on recall of mullins & wilder. Time for folks to remember the lies and half truths of the last recall in February "remember the recall" remember let the people speak, remember all the people tossed out of their selectmen meeting for simply wanting answers to their questions. Recall em mullins & Wilder, the people must speak now and do what they think is right! Time to show those two and their dear friends that we remember, we recall and we did not forget. Remember the bullying of Jeff Ritter from wilder, read the executive session minutes remember, recall and do not forget. August 7 is a week away time to act!!! time to decide, time to stand up and be counted. let them stay and you are sending the message it is ok to lie and chest the taxpayers
ReplyDeleteI am totally against a recall as are many people that I have discussed this with. It will cost the town money for another election and who are you going to see run. Think about it. Do we want someone from the last regime? Pat and Virginia cannot do much damage by themselves as someone will always be looking over their shoulder. Maybe they will smarten up and think for themselves and possibly become useful citizens. We will never forget, but let's try to move on.
Deletemoving on is forgeting and letting them get away with it. There are some good potential candidates out there. You can have the old regime now run or next spring when 2 people will be up and more time will have passed for the old regime to slide in, time to hit em again and hard. I guess we will see
ReplyDeleteHey, maybe if there is a recall Kate Fulton will run! Oh, I hope so....he he he. Can you imagine? Regular BOS meetings would last 7 hours if she was on there. All the more reason to make sure CORI and background checks are implemented for elected officials.
ReplyDeleteBEFORE any recall is arranged, It would be VERY important to see who would be running for selectman, It could backfire and we could end up with worse than the 2 clowns we have now
ReplyDeletewhy not move the voting to balwinville elementary gym then the people can see how bad that building is..just keep a watch on your hub caps you are in scrappy territory ..lol and yes if the chairmen wakes up and not ride both fences there is no reason for a recall....just everybody that goes to the meetings just bring a chunk of steel and scrappy will vote ya way.......007
ReplyDeleteSomeone is going to get hurt leaving BES in the dark after a meeting. I hope the town has a good insurance policy.
DeleteWho is in charge of elementary school maintentence? Is this why they don't fix anything, because they just want new. and yes put some lights up!!!
DeleteI nominate paul sr for selectman,The Bloginator should strick again! Then they will have the investigation done!
ReplyDeletewhere is the Balwinville/ no d school at?