Apparently, someone over on the shiny penny facebook group Jailbirds did not like a posting concerning Templeton capital planning committee. Perhaps they ran out of polish. I laughed so hard when the little thing popped up, almost spit out my coffee, now that would have been bad.
Some posters over there complaining about inventory or lack of so I posted town bylaw on capital improvement committee, shows there is a need for one more at large member.
A.
There is hereby authorized a Capital Improvements Committee, to be composed of five members, as follows:
(1)
One from the Select Board;
[Amended 6-17-2020 ATM by Art. 9; 5-11-2022 ATM by Art. 5]
(2)
One from the Advisory Committee;
(3)
Two from the community at large to be appointed by the Select Board; and
[Amended 5-15-2024 ATM by Art. 10]
(4)
The Town Treasurer/Collector or designee.
[Amended 5-15-2024 ATM by Art. 10]
Capital Improvement Needs a member, sure, but what they really need is an INVENTORY of what we have now.
ReplyDeleteIn the past 8 years this is constantly brought up, and ignored by the Administration. No policy has been created to require an inventory!
How can you plan for capital improvements without any knowledge of INVENTORY.
How many vehicles have been purchased in last 8 years? What happened to the vehicles they were to replace?
That's the simplest one to point out. What happened to the other thousands of dollars of of equipment we've replaced. No tracking exists.....much of it is giving away by department heads to " other" groups.
Heck, our police use old bullet proof vest for target practice. Does that comply with 30A regarding procurement? Who is procurement officer, Adam Lamontagne. Ask him what happened to all replaced,updated items?
Much more going on here than bad policy!
You are absolutely right, and so is Jeff ! We spend so much money on vehicles, with a plan to trade them in, but that doesn't happen ! There goes the plan ! Don't ask me for trucks, when we have no one to run them. Thousands of dollars of "just have to have it" sits and rusts. Don't ask for a dump body, have Town Meeting vote yes, then buy what you want. Time for people to clean up their act, or be gone ! I have had enough.
DeleteI have an idea to help get some accountability about Town vehicles. We need another By-Law. Now, maybe it would be ignored, but maybe it could inspire fiduciary responsibility in spending town funds.
ReplyDeleteNew By-Law:
Town vehicles are to be used for Town business. Any assignment of Town owned vehicle to an individual Town employee must be approved by a 2/3 majority at Annual Town Meeting. This includes all Town vehicles. Light, Water etc. Town vehicles shall not be used for personal business. When purchasing a new vehicle department heads must include an estimate of annual mileage and projected life. They shall report on the status of all vehicles annually. No Town department shall "hand down" Town owned vehicles. They must use them until they are unfit.
The above comment is by Mark Barrieau
DeleteMark, not to far away from my thoughts except in one area....
ReplyDeleteI'll use police as example?
The idea was to have 6 vehicles on a 6 yr rotation so we bought 1 vehicle a year. Doing that cut maintenance cost as you can expect older higher mileage cars incur more repairs. Now this was working in my mind until the old police cruisers have been turned over to departments around town effectively dumping the higher maintenance costs on another department without gaining anything on trade or auction.
You are spot on about Accountabilty being severely needed regarding administration.
I suspect we have too many town vehicles going home with employees. I'm interested in spending less on government. Likewise, my problem with hand-me-down vehicles is they can tend to increase the "fleet." There are too many Blue license plates, let's not let that continue. How many town employees drive Town vehicles?
DeleteMark Barrieau
Absolutely agree we are spending far to much money on vehicles being used by employees for other than work activities. Far to many blue plates operating in town.
DeleteTurning over vehicles like the police has been doing in counterproductive to the entire purchasing program for cruisers we started a few years ago. I fully supported the plan as laid out before Capital Improvement. I fully supported the US of meals tax funds to fund this program.
I do not support the misuse of this program by town employees, supported by the Administration as it increases costs, creates unneeded expenses.
RTM
Above comment to Matt written by Robert May
ReplyDelete