What is wrong at Templeton Light?

What is wrong at Templeton Light?

After reading the last few blog entries concerning flouride and fluching the sewer commissioners, I feel there may be a small disservice to the readers of the blog, which at its heading states it is to keep Templeton residents informed. I believe right now, the blog needs to stay focused on the Special town meeting issues, and while they may make a point and contain important information, those blog items may in fact distract taxpayers from the issue at hand, but I digress, I need to stay focused.
Right now I wish to focus on the article in the Gardner News and the comments by L&W commissioner Dana Blais. Seems like the other 2 commissioners either could not be contacted or chose not to speak. What struck me most was the line "we do things right over here." To that I would simply say if you were doing things right, there would most likly not be a citizens petition seeking to abolish a commission that "is doing things right." Speaking of which, I would point out that unlike the warrant article to dissolve the sewer commissioners, which was promulgated entirely by some members of the select board, the petition to dissolve the L&W commissioners is brought forward by regular town citizens. I do not believe town citizens would seek to dissole one of their elected boards if said board was in fact doing everything right or doing a majority of its work correctly.

So lets take a look at one simple item, the wind turbine. Whether it works now or not is really a mute point, although we would hope the present commission has a plan to deal with this most important issue. The more important issue in my opinion is the record of monies appropriated and spent on the turbine. Remembering that this project was taken up by a municiple entitiy, which means their are Massachusetts General Laws for the accounting of all funds appropriated and expended. There has to be a record of the vote to first do the project, then there has to be a vote along with discussion of how much monies would be appropreiated and from where it would come: ie. bonds, long term or short term borrowing, from existing free cash, etc. Then there has to be some votes to expend certain amounts to pay specific bills for say the purchase of the physical items, then for shipping and permits etc. Then there has to be a simple, detailed record of all the monies expended. MGL chapter 164, section 57 says so. It states the manager has an annual financial report obligation to include furnishing to mayor, select board or to municiple light board an estimate of income from sale of light & gas and of expenses of said plant during a fiscal year. That is a general para phrase of that law but anyone can look it up, (for free on the internet without any expensive legal books paid for by taxpayers!) So to recap, there has to be a record of monies appropreiated and of monies spent, so say 6.3 million dollars was set aside for this project and say 6.8 million was actually expended, there should be a simple on paper record of all of this, available to anyone who would make a public records request. This is after all a public entitiy spending municiple funds. A public records request in writing demands a response of some kind within 10 days, either you records, your records are here but will cost in excess of $10.00, you cannot have these records or it will take X number of business days to process these records. Very simple, on paper anyway. I believe there is a former L&W commissioner who asked for this very information like 2 years agao to no avail, why is that? It is public information and there are laws governing it so where is the information. Cities and towns produce regular audits of their business on a yearly basis, the financial record of the entire town's business produced like clock work yearly, yet the commission that professes to do things right has yet to produce a financial record of one transaction.
This along could be reason enough to abolish this commission but there seems to be more.
Why does it take months to create a website for L&W? There are many municiple light departments out there with websites, copy theirs and perhaps use the service that takes care of it, one meeting with a couple of simple votes, create web site, have so so do it and maitain it, expend X amout of dollars per year on it..done! It does not require months to do. Remember, this website is only happening after citizens attended meetings and question why information on meetings and agendas were so hard to come by and questions of why no website for Templeton Light & water. Why does the selectmen have to send formal letters requesting information? Why not do things right and come to a selectmens meeting and give a monthly report or update as a courtesy to the town folk, it is their department and selectmen meetings are generally televised so folks could watch one meeting and gather information from many departments.
I do not believe people are questioning the work of the employees of the L&W except for the manager and the lack of information from the commission. I find it odd that after a $4.00 per account monthly charge comes to "light" after townfolk took an interest in L&W affairs does this amont suddenly drop to $3.00 per month, feeling the pressure from the petition perhaps? So water spent millions on water upgrades, so how come we still have all the water main breaks recently and where is the funds or plan to deal with them? Why does Templeton water pay $30,000.00 per month for rent if water is part of light department? Could that money be better spent. Where did all those millions spent in the past at water come from and why does water have no money? Could it be there was no real plan to deal with the long term debt. Seems to me the only that happened with the merger of light & water was the water dept. obtained a large long term debt schedule with no plans or revenue to deal with it, the manager of light got a fairly large pay increase which equated to a large retirement debt on the town and or on light & water (adding to debt) and then he rode off into the sunshine 3 - 4 years later leaving behind one fine mess. On top of all this, I have seen nor heard of any plans for the water mains on Baldwinville Road which is scheduled to be rebuilt. Are the water mains going to be replaced while the road is under reconstruction? If not, why not? Would that not be the right thing to do? Or are we just going to be tearing up that road down the way to first deal with the sure to come future water main breaks and then maybe, just maybe replace some of those very old water mains.
It is easy to Monday morning quaterback, but it is just as easy to say "we do everything right" when the facts say otherwise. The big elephant in the room is the lack of a simple on paper PILOT agreement, which was reccomended to the town by the DOR of which the selectmen finally agreed to adopt. This is no secret formula, there are many examples within a report contained which is published on the American Public Powers website of which I am sure Templeton Light belongs, which means they should have a copy which again means when citizens asked about this, it should have been very easy to come by so the commission could have been very forth coming had they wanted to. It seems it is only with the citizens petition moving forward that this commission seems to want to portray itself as an open and available entity. Again, the facts seem to say otherwise Mr. Blais. If in the eyes of the taxpayers, you were indeed doing things right over there, they would not be petitioning to abolish your commission. For the record, it is my hope and I would vote accordingly, that the select board would move as quick as possible to establish a light board and work with them to not only establish certain procedures but also work with them to create and maintain a more equal and fair financial picture for Templeton, of which Templeton Light is a part of regardless of what the present manager of Templeton Light thinks. I believe the only way Templeton is going to get a fair on paper PILOT agreement on record is for this citizens petition to move forward and abolish the elected light commission. This will require work on the part of the select board and we will most definitely have to get away from the meet twice a month, we will be required to meet weekly, in my opinion to do the work necessary to move this item along and to continue to work on all the financial challenges we have ahead and a formal PILOT agreement is one step in this process which will help all of Templeton to move along and toward this goal. Please show up at the STM and be part of the solution, it is your town and your money, make sure we spend it wisely. We also can not simply say no to everything and expect anything to change nor be fixed. Thank you for reading this and thank you for participating.

Jeffrey Bennett