from somewhere in the Desert

So half the money spent and not much to show for it, was a bad idea to hand that over to the school district to begin with but now we have a committee that I believe will get this fiasco going in the right direction. It should be the committee doing the work rather than paying someone thousands of dollars to everything except what their job is, so unfortunately I can see coming up short for the feasibility part. The selectmen and the committee need to look at the contract and how much money was singed off on. They will or should fine it more than the $550,000.00 that was appropriated at town meeting. You will see that Mr. Gerry Skelton signed that document. Surprise surprise surprise as Gomer Pyle use to say, maybe Gomer was in charge.
Not even Bev's wash machine will clean that up so I hope the Chairman of the Board of Selectmen takes the lead and gets this mess straight. Remember, the elementary school project is a TOWN project, not a school district project. I am fairly confident Kirk as new chairman will make sure it stays that way, but no matter who is who, taxpayers need to attend those meetings and take notes and toss every question at them you like, Kirk is usually not bashful. I understand there are some very high water bills in town, wonder if someone lost track with all the breaks, how about an explanation Mr. Driscoll? Time for a rally at the light & water commissioners meeting and demand answers. How can there be no water flowing thru the pipes but your water bill goes up? What possible changes to or wording do the selectmen have a problem with concerning the financial plan from the advisory board? I think a few selectmen just do not want accountability brought on them. They might have to do things in a logical way and that might impede on them doing things which ever way they wish. I know as I wrote out guidelines for the selectmen and a few had big issues with a couple of words, such as "town administrator", as if that wording was suddenly going to give Mr. Jeff Ritter some new powers, which it will not. Jeff Ritter now administers the wishes and votes and guidelines of the selectmen, I just tried to bring forth some guidance to do things in an orderly way, on paper, for anyone to see, and hold them, (the selectmen) to some kind of a standard. I hope the meeting about the fire chief went in a positive way so that department can move forward. A couple of questions that may need to be asked of the selectmen is how many towns does the building inspector and the Health Agent work for, what are the hours at these different towns and can they work all these hours for other towns and still be in Templeton for their required hours. In laymen terms, can the Health Agent be in Templeton for his required number of hours, four days a week and still do those other towns. I do not believe taking calls involving other towns over a cell phone while on the Templeton taxpayer dime is acceptable. Same goes for the Building Inspector, can they sign a time sheet for number of hours in Templeton honestly and still be at those other towns. Taxpayers need to go to those respective offices and see if they are actually there, in the office. Remember, if they answer from a cell phone, they can be anywhere. If the building inspector is suppose to be in Templeton until noon time, he should be in the office, there is not that much building going on in town.

Jeff Bennett