Since I am rude, small minded and may offend my neighbors, I thought I would remind people of this:

from the special Town Meeting of November 9, 2015

ARTICLE 2 DEBT AUTHORIZATION: POLICE STATION UPGRADE

To see if the Town of Templeton will vote to appropriate, borrow or transfer from available funds, a sum of money to be expended under direction of the Selectmen to pay costs of designing, constructing and equipping a 4,000 square foot addition to and remodeling of the Templeton Police Station, located at 33 South Road, and for the payment of all other costs incidental and related thereto; or take any other action relative thereto. 

Submitted by the Board of Selectmen 

On a motion duly made and seconded the Town voted to appropriate the sum of Nine Hundred Seventy-Five Thousand Dollars ($975,000) to pay costs of designing, constructing and equipping a 4,000 square foot addition to and remodeling of the Templeton Police Station, located at 33 South Road, and for the payment of all other costs incidental and related thereto; said sum to be expended under the direction of the Selectmen; and to meet this appropriation the Treasurer, with the approval of the Board of Selectmen, is authorized to borrow said sum under M.G.L. 44, Section 7, or pursuant to any other enabling authority; provided, however, that no sum shall be borrowed or expended hereunder unless the Town shall have voted to exempt the amounts required for the payment of interest and principal on said borrowing from the limitations on taxes by M.G.L. 59, Section 21C (also known as Proposition 2 ½). 

Passed Unanimously/November 9th @ 8:33

from the Annual Town Meeting of May 13, 2017

ARTICLE 16. RATIFICATION OF PREVIOUSLY AUTHORIZED POLICE STATION BOND 

To see if the Town will vote to ratify, approve and confirm the vote adopted under Article 2 of the Warrant at the November 9, 2015 Town Meeting, pursuant to which the Town voted to authorize the borrowing of Nine Hundred and Seventy Five Thousand Dollars and no cents ($975,000.00) to pay costs of designing and constructing an addition to the Police Station, including the payment of all costs incidental and related thereto; or to take any other action relative thereto. Submitted by the Board of Selectmen 2/3 Vote Required 

Advisory recommends for this article provided however that the Meeting be aware that the Town may need to use an extended borrowing in order to be able to smooth the overall tax rate as originally proposed. 

On a motion duly made and seconded the town voted that the Town ratify, approve and confirm the vote adopted under Article 2 of the Warrant at the November 9, 2015 Special Town Meeting, pursuant to which the Town voted to authorize the borrowing of Nine Hundred and Seventy Five Thousand Dollars and no cents ($975,000.00) to pay costs of designing and constructing an addition to the Police Station, including the payment of all costs incidental and related thereto. 

Passed by 2/3 vote/May 13th @ 11:49am

I have to wonder if it would be smart to first obtain authority from the residents to borrow the amount of money required to do this project, since bids have already come in over this authorization. I am thinking the selectmen/Town Administrator are using the above verbiage "all costs incidental and related there to" as a way to use the already approved funds to hire and pay for an OPM. Then they will have to ask taxpayers for more money to pay for the actual project. I would expect a great sales pitch on this subject. 

from the OPM request for services for the Town of Templeton:

 Building Info / Background 

The Town of Templeton is a suburban residential community with a population of approximately eight-thousand-thirteen (8013) residents, located in northern Worcester County. The Town of Templeton has currently approved funding of approximately nine hundred seventy five thousand dollars ($975,000) of the project to (including owner’s project manager) to renovate and construct and addition to the existing Templeton Police Station for the Town of Templeton. A design firm was hired to prepare schematic designs and a detailed renovation budget for the project. The designer worked with the Templeton Police Department through an iterative process to identify needs and refine plans that optimize functionality and economy of operation while minimizing total renovation and construction costs. Additional funding for the project will be sought at the Town Election as a ballot question on May 7th, 2018 with finally approval, should it pass the ballot, at the Annual Town Meeting on May 19th, 2018. 

If the Town already has funding for an OPM, why did they not hire one before going out to bid? Why is it after the fact, when the bid (s) came in much higher than the asked for amount? 

I believe the chapter 193, acts of 2004, construction reform law - public building projects over 1.5 million dollars.   

Section 44A1/2: Fair competition for bidders on construction

Section 44A1/2. (a) A public agency, before entering into a contract for design services pursuant to section 38D or section 38K of chapter 7, shall contract for the services of an owner's project manager to serve as the public agency's agent and consultant during the planning, design and implementation of a contract for the construction, reconstruction, installation, demolition, maintenance or repair of any building by the public agency estimated to cost not less than $1,500,000. The duties of the owner's project manager shall include, but need not be limited to, providing advice and consultation with respect to design, value engineering, scope of the work, cost estimating, general contractor and subcontractor prequalification, pursuant to section 44D1/2 or 44D3/4 when applicable, 

Part of Massachusetts General Law, that you may wish to read, so as to be an informed, educated and perhaps engaged resident. 

Now if I have offended any one, been rude or in your opinion, been small minded, I do not care, maybe that will be reason enough for you to attend a selectmen meeting or Town Meeting. You are aways welcome to an exciting Advisory Committee meeting. 

Some observations;

Justsaying1:35 PM

Watched the joint meeting with Phillipston. To this observer it was obvious that Phillipston has 1. NO lead in its water or any other chemical that makes one stupid. 2.They have engaged and observant residents who ask the best questions 3. Have Selectmen that use their position to advocate for their residents. 4. Have no desire to open their well managed finances to dig out Templeton's poor decisions ( as they shouldn’t ) . 5. I really like Phillipston

After reading the above, my opinion is the Town of Phillipston ride Templeton taxpayers like a rented mule.

Look at dispatch service, Templeton taxpayers pay at a minimum of $340,000.00 for dispatch, while Phillipston pays in the $60,000.00 range for the exact same service. A smart move, which begs the question, if it works so well for Phillipston, why would it not work for Templeton? Write one check without the other expenses, building maintenance, labor contracts, health insurance and retirement to name a few. Again, it works for one Town so why not the other? If Phillipston manages their finance so well, perhaps Templeton should follow suit, as in compare or look at another Town? 

The senior center/ community center is another Templeton taxpayer entity that Phillipston is using without funding part of it, to the best of my knowledge, that question never went to Phillipston Town Meeting. Why would it if you can get the milk free without buying a cow?

Phillipston also has few full time employees, they use Templeton Town accountant on a part time basis. Perhaps they do not have people running for selectmen that put out signs like "save dispatch" when trying to get elected or re-elected, as in looking out for one self rather than the finances of Templeton taxpayers. That save dispatch sign use to be on Haey Brooks face book page but I could not say if it is there any longer. 

When selectmen go to Town meeting and are very obvious about trying to shut down discussion on any subject, my thought is those selectmen need to go! You may wish to watch the police station project closely, if you wish to be an engaged, observant resident.

Recently, I contacted the selectmen's office for a list of elementary school building committee members;

I received the following;

Jeff:

Yes, I do. They are all appointed for one-year terms and expire 6/30/18.

Templeton Elementary School	Rick	Moulton
Building Committee	Nat	North
	Henry	Mason
	Chris	Casavant
	Diane	Haley Brooks
	Kirk	Moschetti
	John	Caplis
	Theresa	Kasper

Must have gotten a site plan together as logging is now in progress on Baldwinville Road at exit 20. Must be in a hurry working Saturday into the evening hours.

Article in the Gardner News states Templeton could be considering giving up ambulance service, as it is struggling to fund it full time. This should not be a surprise, as one selectmen noted this back in 2012. It has been mentioned on this bog that perhaps a positive cash flow scenario should be looked at. That would be the Town getting out of the ambulance business and having private companies bid to provide that service; that would be money coming into the Town rather than all of the required money being spent to have Town provided ambulance service. If the Town stays in the ambulance service with a full time fire department, what will be cut? Senior Center/, library?

I have to wonder what happened to that bright picture of Templeton finance that was portrayed by the selectmen back in 2015? What happened to that bond rating in the spring of 2016? Remember that big deficit that selectmen Caplis was talking about at a  joint meeting with Advisory Committee? Beginning to look like the selectmen were talking out of their back side. A big cheer leading stunt just to get one thing to happen, and now, the proverbial chickens have come home to roost. Have no fear, fortune 500 man is here! He says you should have less time to speak and less time to ask questions, a mighty good sounding plan, don't you think?

Interesting item (s) from the T/A weekly report:

Conservation Commission: Administrative Assistant prepared agenda for February 12 meeting; received notice to add Green Communities as an agenda item.

Planning Board; Administrative Assistant . .. .prepared agenda for the meeting of February 13 and received notice to add Green Communities to agenda.

So who is telling these groups what to place on their agendas?

Advisory Committee training costs $1,000.00 plus $350.00 cloud access fee - pro-rated from January 2018 until June 30, 2018 @ $350.00 = total cost to taxpayers for this year = $1,350.00.

Today, Thursday, February 1, 2018 at 5:50 P.M. in the central office: District reorganization advisory committee meeting - it is the first meeting of this new committee.

Watching the board of selectmen workshop of January 29, 2018, I observed master Fortes state "if you do not like my actions, you can vote me out in 3 years" Actually, we do not have to wait for three years, we can throw you out sooner by way of a recall vote.


Another item talked about was ID's for town employees to include committees, boards, etc. Example given was "fortune 500 companies have ID's for security reasons" and a Templeton example was supposedly a couple members of the conservation committee were in someone's back yard and when asked who they were, they said they did not have any ID to prove that. When I was elected as a selectmen, I was given a card identifying me as a Templeton selectmen for a term of three years from here to there. As a member of other committees, I was also given a card listing the committee and term on which I had been appointed. I received this when I was sworn in by the Town Clerk. So this ID thing is not really a new concept, perhaps selectmen are going to include picture on the "new ID's"

Chairman Caplis stated "I was always taught that if I could make my bed, I could make it through the day" Guess I will not be making it through this day as I do not make my bed daily anymore, had to do that enough in the USMC and I am not there any longer. Perhaps selectmen should take baby steps first, such as show up for meetings, then think about ID's. Next, we could have a Town website where all of the Town's boards, committees, commissions etc. are listed with up to date membership. As for the cost of producing new ID's, I guess they can be paid for out of the meals tax or that talked about prop 2 1/2 override? Yeah, Templeton taxpayers give the selectmen more of your money!

Back to the first item, there was also discussion about limiting your access to speak or to be heard at selectmen meetings. Master Fortes, stated this could still be up to the Chairman of the select board, depending on if there is a weak chair or a strong chair. So, what exactly is a weak chairman? One who lets people speak? The point of this discussion seem to focus on making selectmen's meeting more efficient (more focused and faster, so they can get out of there even quicker, if they even show up) So there you have it, make the meetings easier, faster, less participation of citizens and every one have your papers in order!

I am looking forward to the police station remodeling coming before Town Meeting for the third time (?) this spring.