Today, I went to the office of the Templeton Selectmen and the Town Clerk's office and filed an Open Meeting Law complaint against the Templeton Board of Selectmen for a few reasons. The main reason is because again last evening, the board carried on with a meeting even after two members stepped down because of budget discussions and those two members having conflicts of interest (family members on Town payroll) then again stated they were allowed to do this because of the rule of necessity, both the Town Administrator and chairman John Columbus stated this reason. If you google Massachusetts rule of necessity, you will find that is not true. The rule of necessity allows board member (s) to take part so there is a quorum so a legal open meeting may continue per the MA Open Meeting Law. Other reasons are past issues such as trying to do financial transfers outside the legal time period, statements such as "tonight, selectmen will set the tax rate", having said the rule of necessity allows less than a quorum, the law says we must appoint NRHS buiding/grounds director to the building committee and then the kicker, "the new school in Templeton Center is 1.5 feet over the allowed height allowance per Templeton Zoning regulations, and that is what the selectmen put out last night. In today's Gardner News, page 13, there is a legal notice for the zoning board of appeals. I believe that notice did not just get submitted yesterday afternoon. The notice states the zoning height restriction is at 2.5 stories or 35 linear feet and the proposed school is listed at 43 linear feet, if my fourth grade math serves me correctly, that is more like 8 feet in difference, rather than 1.5 feet. Too many instances of bad information, incorrect information, lies coming from the selectmen and / or Town Administrator. Tell lies often enough and they may become accepted as the truth.

Jeff Bennett