Some takeaways from last nights selectmen meeting;

It was stated there may need to be a plan B for the police station because of the 1.5 milion increase in bids.

There could be a Town Meeting warrant article to "clarify the advisory committee roe in commenting on the warrant" My thought on this is the selectmen wish to control the report of the Advisory Committee to Town Meeting. The way in which Advisory Committee is suppose to report to Town Meeting is already in Town by-laws, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

The selectmen wish to be able to stay on al the committees they are on because it seems like there is going to be a warrant article to alow selectmen to continue to serve on all ad-hoc committees.

There was also mention of a tax override to support ALS ambulance service. If you want a full time fire department and EMS service, you have to pay for it with more taxes.

In part, the ALS service has cost far more to put forth than what was presented to you. Even with the rate increases, there are simply not enough calls to raise the money needed to pay for it.

Seems there are an increase in calls paid for by medicaid and medicare.

The Templeton Municipal Light department is apparently going back to charging Templeton Municipal buildings for lights, as in , electricity. As I stated in a previous post, Templeton needs new light commissioners.

It also looks like selectmen will again try to combine library, veterans service, recreation/culture, cable and council on aging with one person to oversee all of those now separate departments.
The one police cruiser paid for by meals TAX, is now apparently moved to being used to pay for multiple vehicle leases; police cruiser, one-ton truck for DPW,

On the flip side, one time revenue from logging will not be used to support the spending plan, which was stated as a loss of $10,000.00 available to support an approximate 15 million dollar spending plan.

So, back to Advisory Committee, how do the selectmen think they can prevent residents from commenting or questioning Advisory Committee reports, recommendations etc.? Remember, there are seven residents on Advisory and last I checked, selectmen cannot tell residents what to ask, nor can the moderator. So, as a resident, my question (s) could be along these lines; Mr. Moderator, why are you limiting the comments on Advisory Committee? Is it because of the fact you are a Town employee, dependent on the selectmen for the department budget/spending plan that you work for? Has the moderator been told to toe the line? Could there be political collusion at work here? Nah, not in Templeton!

Everyone should pay attention to this spending plan presentation.