Templeton Light & Water Credit Woes

After sending an email to John Driscoll about this issue, I received a reply with some good information and some puzzling info as well. One line in particular which reads "it is too bad that we have had to wait to hear from you, a former selectmen, on this matter rather than one of the acting five." Now the original email sent out from John Driscoll to many officials including all five current sitting selectmen and not one email reply or other communication from active members of the select board. And no, I did not contact any of the five to check this so I am taking Mr. Driscoll's word as I do not see any reason for him to not be other than honest with me on this issue. I know Templeton has a town administrator but he is not full time so someone needs to answer or address or attend these meetings.

Templeton light apparently has options to borrow and in the email response from Mr. Driscoll, the forming of a cooperative was mentioned which I thought was odd because at a selectmen meeting earlier this year, former Templeton Light General Manager Sean Hamilton stated at a BOS meeting that the wind turbine behind the high school was funded or financed under section 47c of MGL c 164. Section 47c covers municipal electric cooperatives so if Mr. Hamilton is/was correct, then there should be no need to form a cooperative because that would seem to have already been done. Perhaps this can be done and dissolved as many times as needed? Mr. Driscoll also stated that Templeton Water has no options like Light has so Templeton Water has no borrowing options which is probably good because I recall the commissioners saying they (the water dept.) has no funds for infrastructure anyway, which is why CDBG grant monies were used to pay for all the water work in back Bay using Templeton chapter 90 money as seed money to get the CDBG grant monies to start with. That is on of the puzzling things about the Templeton Water commissioners going to town meeting and claiming their big independence from the town. You don't get to okay our budget but we use your highway money to replace our water mains. But Dana does things right over there!

One other thing that came up was the use of the town's bond rating to borrow money for the construction of the Light building on Bridge Street. Templeton light went to town meeting and received town meeting approval to borrow 1.5 million dollars for a new 12,000 sq. ft building. Two bids were received in the amount of 1.9 million dollars and one at $2,420,448.00 so Templeton Light accepted the low bid then withdrew $400,000.00 from the MMWEC working capital account to get the 1.9 million needed. (see annual town report 2003, page 27 & 28  submitted by then light general manager Gerald Skelton and commissioners Dana Blais, Gregg Edwards & Sean Hamilton) Now I suppose if Templeton had saved all it's free cash over the years, we would have had a very nice nest egg to use to build a brand new Town Hall  but we did not. Think where you may have seen a 12,000 square foot building and 1.9 million dollar figure before? That project was going to end up costing around 3.8 million dollars. Yep, the ole 252 Baldwinville Road to a town hall project.

Jeff Bennett