Saturday, May 5, 2018

Town Meeting Warrant; If you look over the warrant for the May 19, 2018 Templeton Town Meeting, you will find several articles involving Town By-laws. On May 2, 2018, at Advisory Committee meeting, the town administrator stated the codification study of Templeton by-laws are in, he has a book but he stated he has not reviewed it as of yet. There is also a CD/DVD in with the report as well. Apparently, this process has been complete for some time. So, why propose by-law changes now before reading a taxpayer paid for report? Why pay for something if you are not going to use it or ignore it and make changes that may have already been made by the company you spent money on? Makes me wonder about the competency of the entire board of selectmen. Unless the T/A is keeping this from selectmen or the selectmen are asleep at the wheel, so to speak, why would they vote those articles in? The T/A stated he planned to address this at a planned fall special Town Meeting. So, my question is, why not wait until the fall to propose the by-law changes, if needed?


VOTE Jeff Bennett for Selectman
Recently, a  source tells me long time Templeton employee Carol Lee Eaton has been given an option; resign or be fired. There may have been a mistake made by her. Considering the number of mistakes, some continue still, by the Town Accountant and current Town Treasurer/Collector, why does this employee receive this treatment?
If you read the FY 2017 audit report, you will find on page 10 that the Town continues to improperly account for the E911 grant funds. Whose responsibility is it to track Town funds, to check Town expenses and record them as legal, charged to the correct fund and ensure there is enough money in each fund to cover charges? Why the Town Accountant. Why do the managers of Templeton (selectmen) continue to overlook this employee while they seem to hold all others to a different standard? Perhaps less time spent meddling in politics and more time spent on the job for which you are paid to do.
There is much talk of low attendance at Town Meeting, hard to get volunteers for committees and even candidates to run for office. Perhaps part of the problem is a failure of management to treat all the same and to put things forward in a truly open and honest fashion. Perhaps what is needed is a selectman who will speak to this and who will point out such things as expenditure reports continually showing mistakes. Enough with the "keying errors."


It is truly time for a change, please VOTE Jeff Bennett for Selectmen
If you are paying attention, the FY 2017 Annual Town Report is now posted on Town web site. The following comes from the selectmen portion of the report:
Future Aspirations
As Templeton continues to progress towards financial stability the Board plans to change focus
from financial correction to financial efficiency & operational standardization. We intend to
explore both of these routes equally in order to promote a healthy work space and cost effective
savings for the tax payers. We are hoping to increase communication with surrounding towns to
discuss openly points of possible synergies and methods of strategies. Encouraging department
heads to reach out to other department heads from neighboring communities for ideas and
promoting training of our current staff to allow them to think about how their job can be done
more effectively while maintaining extraordinary service.
On page 78 of that report is an item from the special Town Meeting of October 20, 2016. It was about FY 2017 budget supplement.
On a motion duly made and seconded the town voted to amend the 2017 annual town
budget as voted in Article 4 at the annual town meeting to add the sum of Eighty-Seven
Thousand Five Hundred One Dollars and No Cents ($87,501) to the long term debt
service line of that budget (Account No. 100-710-700-59-5910-000), and further to
transfer said sum from the stabilization fund to pay for the foregoing
Defeated/October 20th @ 7:56 by hand count requested by 7 or more voters.
Prior to the vote, Advisory Committee member Jeff Bennett pointed out that according to the current balance number given to the Advisory Committee before the meeting, that $87K represented about half of the stabilization fund and that it did not seem prudent to make that move. Thank fully it did not happen, as Advisory found out later, the actual balance of the stabilization fund at the time of the meeting was around $90,000.00. After that vote and meeting, selectmen began a verbal assault on Advisory Committee, even going so far as to profess that people needed to get the permission of the Moderator regarding what material people can bring into Town Meeting with them. No, the moderator is not the paper police. If you check, Julie Richard was a member of the select board at that time and I was a member of the Advisory Committee. Now, I would like to represent you on the Board of Selectmen, where I will speak up for you.
It is time for a change, I ask that you VOTE Jeff Bennett for selectmen. Thank You.