Another view from the Desert

Another view from the Desert

After having read the second letter from Mr. Dana Blais, I have another thought on the issue with regards to the present Light & Water commission and the general manager of Templeton light. This is some interesting reading (yes MGL is interesting reading to me, go figure) Any municipal light department is prevented from changing their rates more than once every three months. MGL chapter 164, section 59 states "When a town fixes or changes a price, a notice thereof specified by the department shall be filed within 60 days with the department by the manager of the municipal lighting plant. So that little bit of information shows the selectmen, if they are so tasked, would have some basic rules to follow to change the rates to, as was alluded to in Mr. Blais' letter, drain the light department and just use it as a cash cow. Nor does it make any sense to this selectmen to just empty the cash coffers of the light department to underwrite the needs of the town. There are other laws to prevent this from happening anyway and as a light commissioner for over 23 years I would think Mr. Blais would know this and not put out such blatantly false information nor even imply its possibility. Now MGL chapter 164, section 63;
duties of municipality and its officers, violations and penalties. Within this section, it states in part "The mayor, selectmen or light commission if there is one, shall annually on or before such date as the department fixes, make a return to said department for the preceding fiscal year, signed and sworn to by either the mayor, selectmen or light board and by the manager of the light department stating the financial condition of said "business" The amount of authorized and existing indebtedness, a statement of income and expenses in such detail as the department may require. A list of salaried officers and the amount of salary paid to each. The Mayor, selectmen or municipal light board may direct additional returns to be made at such time and in such detail as he or they may order." First, the law does not state that it has to be the light board, it say it may be either or, which leaves me wondering if someone is/was in violation of a Massachusetts General law by submitting the same financial report to the Annual Town report two years in a row. Could that be grounds for firing the general manager of the plant?
MGL chapter 164, section 56; Management of the plant: States in part "The manager shall at the end of each municipal year render to the mayor, selectmen or light board such detailed statement of his doings and of the business and financial matters in his charge as the department may prescribe. All monies payable to or received by the city, town, municipal light board or manager in connection with the operation of the plant for the sale of gas or electricity or otherwise shall be paid to the city or town treasurer. All accounts rendered to or kept in the gas or electric plant of any city shall be subject to the inspection of the city auditor, and in towns, these records shall be subject to the inspection of the selectmen. The manager shall at any time, when required by mayor, selectmen or light board or the department, make a statement to such officers of his doings, business receipts, disbursements, balances and of the indebtedness of the town in his dept." I think this chapter of the law should convince Mr. John Driscoll that, unlike he may think and or has stated in the past, he does in fact work for the town of Templeton, as in the Templeton Municipal Electric and Water department! I can see no way why Templeton residents or even a selectmen who in the past was a member of the light commission should have any difficulty obtaining any financial information on the costs of the landmark wind turbine located next to the high school on Baldwinville Road. Massachusetts General law seems to state that the manager is directly responsible to the Templeton selectmen in providing that very information. Perhaps the present chairman of the board of selectmen and also a member or the light commission can obtain and provide this information post haste as seems to be required by law. It would appear that some current selectmen were very negligent in their duties by failing to sign certain letters to the light commission or at the very least drug their feet, so to speak and in the end, helped cause the current citizens petition to come to fruition.
Another interesting note I came across while looking for the above information is the Princeton municipal light department has the highest electric rates in the state. They also get 40% of their power from wind energy, which may show that right now, the so called green wind energy entity is perhaps not the way to go at this point in time. Also contained in that article was a certain investor owned electric company was dropping its rates and moving behind Princeton in terms of rate costs due to power generated by natural gas is dropping in costs and the company is passing the savings on to consumers. Perhaps with the availability of so much natural gas which is causing the reduction in cost of it as a fuel source in addition to the energy efficiency of electric appliances and of efforts of consumers to use less is helping with rate drops. Maybe this is the cause for a rate drop in Templeton (if in fact that happens) or maybe it is another appeasement tactic along with the $1.00 drop in customer service charge that recently happened. Either way, there appears to be at least two mass laws dealing with the financial reporting of municipal light plants so there does not seem to be any good reason for a lack of records of the costs fro the wind turbine, as in what was voted on to spend, how the money came to be (borrowing, free cash etc) and what was expended and did the expenses exceed what was originally voted? Seems like these records are required by law to be provided, if only the commission did things the right way they would probably not be facing possible elimination. Please do not take my word for it, go on-line and look up these laws and peruse the rest that is there concerning the sale of electric power by muni's, it is interesting.

Jeff Bennett