Tuesday, May 3, 2016

What is a 'Fiduciary'

A fiduciary is responsible for managing the assets of another person, or of a group of people. Asset managers, bankers, accountants, executors, board members, and corporate officers can all be considered fiduciaries when entrusted in good faith with the responsibility of managing another party's assets. 

A fiduciary's responsibilities are both ethical and legal. When a party knowingly accepts a fiduciary duty on behalf of another party, they are required to act in the best interest of the party whose assets they are managing. The fiduciary is expected to manage the assets for the benefit of the other person rather than for his or her own profit, and cannot benefit personally from theirmanagement of assets. This is what is known as a prudent person standard of care, a standard that originally stems from an 1830 court ruling. This formulation of the prudent-person rule, required that a person acting as fiduciary was required to act first and foremost with the needs of beneficiaries in mind.

I think if this current board of Selectmen were really thinking of the ones whom they are most responsible for, the residents of Town, perhaps they would not have grown the size of government back up so quickly. I think in their haste to make things look well and to make their point, the selectmen put back all the assistants and made no real effort to put any monies aside and this has been a poor choice which I think is evident by all of the financial transfers that have been done and those that will be put before the voters again.

Jeff Bennett 
This is from the face book page of John Columbus.




April Cover: Good! Congratulations to all! Glad to see Jeff didn't get back on. I thought that it was weird of him to be running again. Didn't he resign from his position with no explanation when the misappropriation of funds was being investigated?

What Ms. Cover may not know is that there was no investigation because there was no misappropriation of funds. No money was taken and this was shown back in the fall of 2013. It was a matter of budget preparation back in the spring of 2013 and the result was that the budget presented to the annual Town meeting was not balanced. There were some items that were in the revenue column but not in the expense column such as the Ambulance receipts account. I have the document to show her and anyone else how it happened. So Ms. Cover may wish to check before making a statement like that. Which is misleading and probably leads to more confusion.

Jeff Bennett

ARTICLE 1            CITIZEN’S PETITION:  ADVISORY COMMITTEE APPOINTMENTS


To see if the Town will vote amend Article IV of the General Bylaws (Advisory Committee) to read as follows: 

Section 3.   The Town Moderator shall fill any vacancies which may occur on the committee.  No appointment shall be made until the vacancy has been posted on the Town’s website for 14 days.  If any member is absent for five consecutive meetings his position shall be deemed vacant, and filled by the town Moderator as herein provided.  The appointee shall serve the remainder of the unexpired term.
A citizen’s petition submitted by John Columbus and 10 others

I think John Columbus and the rest of the current board of selectmen should concentrate on following the rules and laws that affect them and that they are suppose to follow before he goes messing with the Advisory Board or any of the Town by-laws.

Jeff Bennett
e-mail from May 2, 2016

All -
The Warrant with Motions and Summaries is attached.  This is not the official ATM Warrant; the signed Warrant with articles only will be posted on Wednesday morning according to the law.  I included the articles with the motions and summaries for convenience.  
Town Counsel has reviewed all except the motions for the Sewer articles.  Should have their response on these articles tomorrow.  
Bob
Robert T. Markel
Interim Town Administrator
Town of Templeton
160 Patriots Road
East Templeton, MA 01438
(978)894-2753

As soon as the warrant is posted, I will place a link here that has the warrant and motions so the voters can get a look see before town meeting

Jeff Bennett
fiduciary is a person who holds a legal or ethical relationship of trust with one or more other parties (person or group of persons). Typically, a fiduciary prudently takes care of money or other asset for another person. One party, for example a corporate trust company or the trust department of a bank, acts in a fiduciary capacity to the other one, who for example has entrusted funds to the fiduciary for safekeeping or investment. Likewise, asset managers—including managers of pension plans, endowments and other tax-exempt assets—are considered fiduciaries under applicable statutes and laws.[1] In a fiduciary relationship, one person, in a position of vulnerability, justifiably vests confidence, good faith, reliance, and trust in another whose aid, advice or protection is sought in some matter.[2] In such a relation good conscience requires the fiduciary to act at all times for the sole benefit and interest of the one who trusts.

I wonder if any of the five current selectmen knows what this means? I think by the number of financial transfers that have taken place over the past year along with the number of special town meetings that have been held, I tend to think not. I believe this will be shown at the next Annual Town meeting.

Jeff Bennett
Massachusetts General Law aside, the absence of the report of the Treasurer and Accountant worries me when it comes to financial audits. Are these reports missing because the information for FY2015 is incomplete? Is there an accounting of the Town's debt for fiscal year 2015? And John Columbus cannot put this anywhere but in his lap. No more of it was the ones before us! Not any more.

Jeff Bennett
Jeffrey Kovach Those who did not win will keep running, again and again.

That is a comment by Mr. Kovach on the face book page of John Columbus. So I have to wonder if Mr. Kovach, who is listed as chair of Templeton Democratic Committee, thinks only certain people should be allowed to run for elective office?

I have to ask and will check to see if Mr. Kovach and John Columbus signed the nomination papers of Denise Andrews.
I think I might have to get on Twitter now and start tweeting!

Jeff Bennett