Legal opinion in from K&P attorney Mark Reich

In a legal opinion to the town, Mr. Reich writes that even though the borrowing of $400,000.00 passed at special town meeting in November, 2011, the ballot question failed. The building committee wanted to just put the question back on the annual town election scheduled for May 7, 2012, reworded of course. At a meeting of the municipal building committee, Jerry Skelton stated that since it passed special town meeting vote, we can just put it on the May 7, 2012 ballot, reworded. Not so fast says Mr. Reich. Also Mr. Reich opines that since there is no funding in place, the board of selectmen may authorize the building committee to advertise the project for bids, but since there is no funding currently available
for the project, language should state that execution of the bids are subject to appropriation of funds in support of the project. Mr. Reich further states that it will be necessary for funding of the project to be reauthorized by town meeting vote and a ballot question if the town is again to seek a debt exclusion. I read that to mean that a town meeting vote will be required to go after the 1.9 million dollar loan plus a town meeting vote for the additional $400,000.00 debt exclusion which would have to be followed by a special town election for a ballot question. Seems like the 252 Baldwinville Road project is pretty much dead in the water. I mean how many taxpayers in Templeton are going to vote borrowing 1.9 million dollars along with additional $400,000.00. We already have the purchase price of $400,000.00 for the building itself to deal with, which may be a good time to put it up for sale and hope we can find a sucker, I mean a willing entity to take it off the hands of the taxpayers and hopefully turn it into a tax producing property again. It may be a good time to look at the East Templeton school for town office space and stop paying rent to JBM. Let JBM pay their own property taxes and pay for their fishing trips out of their own pockets, right Kirk! Mr. Reich follows up with an emphasis that since there is no funding for this project, any and all bid documents advertised for the project should clearly state that execution of a contract is contingent upon funding. According to MGL, c 44, section 31, the town may not undertake a contractual obligation in excess of an available appropriation. The committee may determine the actual cost of the project through bidding. The town should warn potential bidders there is currently no appropriation and therefore the town cannot enter into a contract. This action is required to avoid the town becoming involved in a legal battle because a contractor who submits a bid and now wishes to either state they are entitled to a contract or damages based upon the town soliciting its bid for this project. I believe it is time for the Board of selectmen to dissolve the municipal building committee, do what is needed to move town offices into the East Templeton school and weather the budgetary storm that is upon us. If and when we build up sufficient cash reserves, then we again look at a town hall building, hopefully starting from scratch. Remember, the money spent on Templeton is YOUR money, and it is my opinion, taxpayers need to ask how did we get to this point, how did Templeton get to such an economical mess, who has been in charge of your money? Who has failed to let you know your cash reserves were being depleted with no apparent plan to fix it or to slow the drain down. More importantly, what is the realistic plan to get your financial ship back on tract. My opinion is, the first place to cut is to end all salaries for all elected town officials, eliminate all stipends for chairmanships of boards and committees. Look at the costs to regionalize some services and departments, page 27 of the 2010 annual town report of Templeton shows that the electrical inspector took in $10,265.00 in fees with a salary for the inspector set at $7,625.00, that is a net gain of $2640.00. On page 153 of the 2010 annual town report of Templeton, it shows a salary of the electrical inspector set at $10,500.00. Who set this amount and why would you set a future salary for a department that took in less the previous year than what you will now be paying someone. Just whose brainy idea was this? Did whoever make up this so-called budget bother to look at the previous years intake? If you do this in the real world, it is called operating in the red and anyone in business will tell you that you can only do this for so long before you go under. Nothing personal with the electrical inspector, but it may be time to partner with Gardner with our building department services to try and get the budget under control. In my opinion, this budget scenario should have been addressed along time ago, but I guess saying we are level funded, balanced budget with no tax increase is real popular with the voters, until the voters and taxpayers are told they are broke and the folks that allowed this to happen have retired and road off into the sunset with their secured nice fat pensions. I can at least say to the voters and taxpayers that I was part of a group who were trying to get this under control but had the rug pulled out from under us by a bunch of people who went out and about and lied and misrepresented themselves to the voters in order to move backwards. The only they missed was that the flood gates were not closed, no one was watching the shelter and most of the dogs got out and are now on the loose, so taxpayers should hold their wallets close. We need to keep attending the meetings in large numbers and demand that all elected officials give up their pay to help out the taxpayers with the financial mess created by the people you elected and trusted to do your business.

Thank you for your support and for coming to our meetings and holding us accountable through your questions and presence. Jeffrey Bennett