Thank you Citizens of Templeton
A while back, I filed an ethics complaint against Dennis O'Brien for his involvement with 252 Baldwinville Road. Imagine a selectmen signing off on a deal that would improve property right across the street from their own property. You can see a blog entry by Julie Farrell citing the conflict of interest law that covers this. Well that complaint was sitting there down in Boston with ethics not doing anything until..........the citizens petition for an investigation finally got going. Within that petition is a question about 252 and how the entire mess was done. It has a senate docket number now so ethics is forced to deal with my complaint and hopefully Mr. O'Brienn will be paying a nice fine for it. Funny how things move along without interference from good ole Len Kopelman (my opinion there by the way) Makes me wonder how many ethics complaints went untouched because of that link. Ethics did nothing when I filed a complaint against Police Chief David Whitaker when he got involved with the so-called hearing involving Paul Cosentino sr.. Remember he read a statement from former con com agent David Koonce, the only he forgot was to mention how Mr. Koonce is a con com agent in Winchendon, where Mr. Whitaker lives and serves on the con com. oops! While serving on the com con, Mr. Whitaker must have been involved in the hiring of David Koonce in March of 2008, right after Mr. Koonce was hired in Templeton in February 2008, double oops. You read a statement on behalf of a con com agent that you work with and probably was involved in hiring and you fail to mention this while getting a citizen banned from town buildings for asking a question. "What do I have to do to get your attention, go postal?" That is the question Mr. Cosentino asked and the selectmen failed to answer that evening. But later on at a BOS meeting that was not posted, I filed a complaint about that as well and the Attorney General found the board guilty of violating the open meeting law! I wonder how many other valid complaints went unchecked because of interference from K&P (my opinion again based on personal observations) I also hope the advisory board will have time to go back and look at past bills from K&P and see how many times the town was billed twice for the same call. Thank You to Paul Cosentino and the citizens of Templeton for standing up for what is right. I believe this will finally show people that Mr. Cosentino was/is not some crazy old man but rather someone who had the interest of Templeton in mind, had facts and proof on paper to back it up, only the deck was stacked against him by his own representatives and law firm. Someone please point this out to Denise Andrews.
Jeff Bennett
A while back, I filed an ethics complaint against Dennis O'Brien for his involvement with 252 Baldwinville Road. Imagine a selectmen signing off on a deal that would improve property right across the street from their own property. You can see a blog entry by Julie Farrell citing the conflict of interest law that covers this. Well that complaint was sitting there down in Boston with ethics not doing anything until..........the citizens petition for an investigation finally got going. Within that petition is a question about 252 and how the entire mess was done. It has a senate docket number now so ethics is forced to deal with my complaint and hopefully Mr. O'Brienn will be paying a nice fine for it. Funny how things move along without interference from good ole Len Kopelman (my opinion there by the way) Makes me wonder how many ethics complaints went untouched because of that link. Ethics did nothing when I filed a complaint against Police Chief David Whitaker when he got involved with the so-called hearing involving Paul Cosentino sr.. Remember he read a statement from former con com agent David Koonce, the only he forgot was to mention how Mr. Koonce is a con com agent in Winchendon, where Mr. Whitaker lives and serves on the con com. oops! While serving on the com con, Mr. Whitaker must have been involved in the hiring of David Koonce in March of 2008, right after Mr. Koonce was hired in Templeton in February 2008, double oops. You read a statement on behalf of a con com agent that you work with and probably was involved in hiring and you fail to mention this while getting a citizen banned from town buildings for asking a question. "What do I have to do to get your attention, go postal?" That is the question Mr. Cosentino asked and the selectmen failed to answer that evening. But later on at a BOS meeting that was not posted, I filed a complaint about that as well and the Attorney General found the board guilty of violating the open meeting law! I wonder how many other valid complaints went unchecked because of interference from K&P (my opinion again based on personal observations) I also hope the advisory board will have time to go back and look at past bills from K&P and see how many times the town was billed twice for the same call. Thank You to Paul Cosentino and the citizens of Templeton for standing up for what is right. I believe this will finally show people that Mr. Cosentino was/is not some crazy old man but rather someone who had the interest of Templeton in mind, had facts and proof on paper to back it up, only the deck was stacked against him by his own representatives and law firm. Someone please point this out to Denise Andrews.
Jeff Bennett
Denise knows the facts. It did not take her too long to see the writing on the wall, seeing she was at one of the first selectman's meeting, held in the cafeteria, by Bubba. Denise was the only support Pauly had in the beginning, and has stayed the course. Good to hear from you Jeff. Your wish that we get three feet of snow, pretty much, came true. Thanks a lot, we will be digging out for a week!!LOL, Bev.
ReplyDeleteGood to hear from you!
ReplyDeletePauly was right about many things. I hope the investigation will show who was responsible for many of the "wrongdoings" in town. One of my hopes for this investigation is that it will point a way forward so these "mistakes" will not happen again.
How did our financial situation get so bad when we had a checks and balances in place? We had an accountant, we were doing audits, where did it all go wrong? I hope the investigation will make that clear.
How do we combine two departments? Was Chapter 93 Acts of 2000 the appropriate way to combine Light and Water? Can you use ratepayer resources for a ballot election? Can that be true?
How can K&P allow an e-mail to serve as a payment invoice for a $400,000 purchase of 252 Baldwinville Rd? Why is Templeton always the exception! And why is Templeton double billed for legal services?
So many questions, so little time.
SO Jeff do you have a selectmen over there with you or what???
ReplyDeleteWell, I do not have a Templeton selectmen with me over here, I am not sure how many other selectmen in Massachusetts serve ing the reserves or guard, but my puzzled look askes the question, "what is the point anonymous 1:31 p.m.?" Close as I can come are emails from selectmens office containing budget vs actual, selectmen agenda and packet information and other selectmen stuff emailed to me by a very thorough employee in the BOS office. When I have acess to computer, I find I receive all email that goes out to all the other selectmen. Thank You.
ReplyDeleteI have computer acess to all town departments, newspapers, national news, I receive and read statehouse news from beacon hil, I have email acess to state representatives and I use this acess when I have the chance, in essence I try to do my job as best I can while being in Afghanistan. Anonymous, perhaps you can explain to Dana that if the light dept pays more money to the town throught PILOT, they do not have to increase rates for electricity, they simply get to keep less and may have to watch expenses and budgets like the rest of the town departments. Perhaps the elected commissioners for go thier salary for starters, do away with clothing allowances for employees who are already making more than 50 thousand dollars a year in salary. sounds like common sense to me.
ReplyDeleteIt's really pathetic that you have to have a citizens petition at a STM calling for an investigation of 252 Baldwinville Rd ...etc ....BEFORE Ethics will do their job.
ReplyDeleteWhen anyone filed an Ethics complaint against me, it became a top priority for Ethics. Anyone else find that odd? I agree with Jeff, Lenny pulls lots of strings.
Wouldn't it be nice to live in a world where people do their damn jobs?
Speaking of Dana, I wonder if the State knows that while he is getting paid by the State to plow the ramps in East Templeton, while he is Sanding with STATE Sand, that he is also sanding the parking lot at the Big Bus company right at exit 21, He has been doing it for years. Wonder if he has a state GPS in his vehicles. I guess once a crook always a crook.
ReplyDeleteHey anonymous 6:26am smarten up Wilsons do their own sanding let's not spread rumors about good people (wilsons) in this town.
DeleteTo be honest, I don't care what the Ethics Commission says. I know the truth of what happened here in Templeton. And that will stay in my own history of this town. Pauly was right. Julie was right. The Echo Hill Gang caused a lot of havoc in Templeton. I will never support any of them in any municipal role they try to get. It would be nice to see Ethics hold people accountable for breaking the rules. But, MA government has a bad track record of enforcing the law equally--especially when people have the resources to make campaign contributions to buy their influence. So, I'm not holding my breath. The best thing that can come from all of this mess is that we learned a big lesson: pay attention to town government and how your money is being handled. The "wrongdoings" won't happen again with so many people keeping a close eye on operations. Also, we have in writing that the majority of this town knows "wrongdoings" occurred in our town. Its documented forever in history regardless if the state decides to do the right thing or not.
ReplyDeleteWhere's "Infoman" when you need him?
ReplyDeleteMy reason for bringing information on rebates and the benefits from belonging to MMWEC, were to point out that the Commissioners at the Light and Water have not worked for the taxpayers in a very long time. That attitude has to stop! It is not fair to every man, woman and child in our town. The reason for having a municipal light company is not to benefit the light company. The faster these people, staff and commissioners, "get it" the better off all of us will be. My aim is not to hurt anyone, why would I?? I have nothing to gain, only way I would, is if it is more affordable for the people in our town to live. When I was a child, my father was very sick. I know how it is to be low income! Any help from the Water and Light will make it easier on a lot of the people in this town. That is not a bad thing, and it would not hurt our town as a result.
DeleteSpeaking of ethics, wonder if it was wrong for a selectmen to vote fire one law firm and rehire a firm. The same firm that represented another town where a certain selectmen was involved in a little controversy. One has thier butt covered in one mess then rewards the law firm with a job in a town they now represent as a selectmen. Patrick mullins was in a little bit of a jam in Winchendon and good ole K&P is the law firm for that town. The Patrick voted to rehire K&P in Templeton. Was that a conflict of interest that could be punishable by a nice fine? The simple way to avoid those things is to abstain from the vote but then no majority to make the deed happen. Maybe we can go back and revisit that and make that happen, a nice going away present like a fine due the commonwealth for being bad. What a concept. Perhaps when we have that conversation with Beacon Hill, we can ask that question. And how about Chris Stewart being a light commissioner while sitting as chairman of the Board of Selectmen voting to send a letter to light & water. There is a salary involved at light & water, so perhaps Mr. Stewart should not be voting on anything before the BOS that involves light & water. He does after all have a vested financial interest over at light. Just another reason to adopt the recommendation of the Department of revenue for selectmen to hold no other office in Templeton
ReplyDeleteJeese Jeffy, You must live in a parallel universe. How can you expect "Scrappy" and "lazy ass" to do their jobs? This is a Parallel universe of Templetonium. I bet you thought it was Templeton, DOH !
ReplyDelete