Saturday, May 9, 2020
TO: SelectBoard
FROM: Carter Terenzini, Town Administrator
RE: Scout Hall
DATE: February 5, 2020
CC: Advisory Committee; Accountant; file
______________________________________________________________________________
I write to follow-up on recent questions relative to Scout Hall raised by various bodies.
Let me first address the matter of expenditures to date. There have been two appropriations of $50k each to this project from CPA funds. Those were made at the Annual Town Meeting of 2016 and the Fall Town Meeting of 2019. To date, $38,859.26 has been expended. You will find the itemized breakdown and invoices attached.
Let me now move on to the matter of the request for the second round of funding. Over a period of time, this office somehow become more deeply involved in trying to assist with project bidding and implementation. Our DPW Director, which includes Buildings & Grounds, was assigned to be the lead person on this. As the project approached having roughly $10k on hand, it became apparent to him that there were insufficient funds to complete the project. He recommended we not proceed further until we could identify the remaining elements needed for a finished project and obtain funding to carry those out.
In a meeting with the Committee Chair, Ms. Julie Richard, Bob and I did verify such a list and Bob went on to compile the needed estimates. With that in hand, with the Fall Town Meeting approaching, with a project that had already been in progress far longer than anticipated, and with a Committee that seemed challenged to obtain a quorum and convene, I personally encouraged Ms. Richard to seek the needed funding from the CPC. In conjunction with that application I advised her there would also be a need to appear before the Capital Planning Committee. She did as asked and presented to both bodies the estimates compiled for her.
At this point I want to apologize to Ms. Richard for not have been more aggressive in defending her by explaining I asked her to do these things. If you have any questions about why I asked Mr. Szocik or Ms. Richard to do as they did feel free to ask and I will respond as best I can.
Where this project goes from here I leave to the Board.
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Carter could ask whatever He wanted of Ms. Richards, it doesn't change the fact that Ms. Richards was on the Scout Hall reuse Committee, She, not Carter is responsible for her actions. Carter works for BOS, he doesn't or shouldn't be directing them. Even if He does "ask" them to do something it doesn't take away that persons responsibility to act as the Chairman of the Scout hall reuse Committee.
ReplyDeleteMy take is simply that Ms. Richards when confronted with her behavior in this event went running to Carter for cover. Carter being the employee obliged with the above letter the day before this issue was talked about by the Advisory Committee.
The above letter, in my opinion is just an attempt to provide cover and a possible excuse for Ms. Richard improper behavior.
Just to be clear, in covering for Ms. Richard our Administrator made many mistakes of judgement that incurred expenses by the town not approved by the Scout Hall reuse committee, BOS or Town Meeting.
To top it off. Carters legal opinion makes it even harder to justify the involvement of any town employees or are we now saying Scout Hall reuse Committee had supervisory powers over town employees? Because according to legal document the BOS wasn't an overseer, just an appointer of the committee.
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ReplyDeleteIf you would like to Hear Mr Terenzini defend his action you can check out 45:50 thru 1:05:00 of the Febuary 6,2020 Advisory Meeting. Mr Terenzini asks us to ask and we did and these are his "best response" on that day.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZoAFiWccHI&t=3531s
deleted previous as I forgot link,