Paul working for you.
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
a blog from the desert
To the residents of Templeton
Reading an email from Kate Meyers to the Board of Selectmen, I am puzzled why an employee has to beg selectmen to do their job. This is not right and very troubling to this selectmen/resident. Now I read in The Gardner News that Mr. Chris Stewart feels any investigation will bring a lack of credibility to the town? The article states that this is not moving forward. Allow me to digress for a moment. Is it a credible thing to look an organization over and check on procedures, finances and past practices? There is an issue going on in the state of Mass. right now, it involves a crime lab where it appears past practices and procedures may have contributed to wrong doings. Is the state wrong for investigating this? Does that investigation bring discredit to the entire State Police organization? Would some people wish it was never made public? Absolutely, more often than not people or groups do not wish to look bad. A perfect example is when someone got my old court record and posted it in alot of places, other than trying to make me look bad or put into question if I was a good candidate to be representing citizens of Templeton, what other reasons could there be behind that. Rather than hide or ignore it, I put out exactly what had happened and what I have done going forward to "correct" those past not so good actions
. I believe nothing could bring more credibility and praise to Templeton and to our representatives in the state house and the Attorney Generals office than to have a fair and open investigation of past practices and procedures in Templeton. To be sure there is plenty to do in Templeton and it is going to be painful, economic cuts and tax increases are going to have to happen to get back on right track and all employees are going to have to take less (as in pay and benefits) to get financially right again. The town either ignores it and continue on as we are and face real bad times ahead or we step u to the bar and put our money down for the future betterment of our town. We are New Englanders, we are suppose to be resilient, we are use to cold hard winters and short summers. We have a very hard "winter" coming and we need to prepare for it. We can begin by demanding an investigation of all things to this point. One thing I hope would come of this investigation is that if any wrong doing has been done, by whom ever, those people are never allowed to be trusted with the business of the residents of Templeton again. To be certain, in small towns with our system of governance, friends will most always vote for friends and certain family names will always come into play, but there comes a time when one must be held accountable and in my opinion, nothing is worse than putting towns people in financial jeopardy for personal gain or personal payback. It cannot be about how much money can I put in my pocket or how big can I make my department, it has to be about the whole and what is best to keep the town together and intact. Please allow this investigation to move forward and bring credibility to your town
Jeff Bennett
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Jeff,
ReplyDeleteExcellent point about the court records. It makes good sense sometimes to air out past problems and how they were corrected. It might have been helpful to mention the names of the mud slingers as it might have given everyone an idea of who actually has credibility problems.
Although I've more of less been a life long resident, I'm fairly new to actually paying attention to town business which is my own fault; so I need all the help I can get. Pauly's blog has been helpful in getting me up to speed, though.
Anyway, while credibility is important, accountability is also necessary. I am fully in favor of the investigation and will vote as such. But if no one is going to have to pay the piper then it might be a waste of time and money. We really need to make sure that there will be charges filed and followed through with if there are any inconsistencies.
Jeff, this is very well written. Thank you for your thoughts. I agree completely and hope others will as well tomorrow night.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion it will take a good crowd of honest people at tomorrows Special Town Meeting because the self interest group should be out in force. In regards to the WWTP lawsuit, if you have come to the same conclusion as myself, that Erving was a party to the contract as established in the Federal Court, in the original contract, in Dana Putnams affidavit and in the town vote from the January 26 1974 town meeting then this travesty needs to be investigated. The town should also not be paying for lagoon testing that should have been covered under the contract with Erving. This lie needs to be challenged.
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