Since it has been shown the school district has a hard time with snow removal when there is 12 inches plus, the Town will, despite the regional agreement, provide a loader and trucks as necessary, to remover snow from parking areas and the "cross road" between Wellington and South Road. There will be a cost attributable to snow & Ice, which the budgeted amount barely covers the cost to plow town roads. This is an item that has been tentatively put in place by the Town Administrator in agreement with Superintendent. The arrival of winter has shown that some of the concerns and questions raised along the way of the school being built were justified. The site looked great on paper, on a summer day, but how things change when you add the white stuff (snow) If you think this is only happening at the school, check out cumbies and notice how much parking they have lost due, in part, to snow accumulation. A learning curve for the school district plowing their areas out

Recent audit presentation; appears Templeton audit firm is cutting back on expenses, contract for audit services listed as $28,000.00 per audit, yet neither the management letter nor the audit report itself is in any type of binder or cover. Management letter has a paper clip and audit report has a spring clip on it. Maybe it was a rough year.

The all committee/board meeting was pretty much a bust, from an attendance stand point to substance. Of course with one member from Council on Aging turning it into a 10 minute bitch session, pretty much about how their feelings were hurt at the first meeting attended, well, not many people want to sit through that. Another dog and pony show idea from military that just does not work; unlike the military, you cannot force people to show up. Perhaps an indicator on how attendance is poor at Town Meeting, when you have people who volunteer and say they are committed to this or that, yet fail to show for meetings, how do you then expect people to show for Town Meeting.

ASHBURNHAM — The town is recouping and is slowly digging its way out of its fiscal crises. During Town Meeting on Monday at 7 p.m., voters will be asked to dip into stabilization to help fund the actions taken to bring back fiscal stability.

There are only three articles on the Town Warrant. The first two articles concern the funding for the town administrator and the auditing firm that came to unravel the town finances for the last two years. A stronger hand will take over as the new accountant and town manager are about set to start in January.

The first article on the warrant seeks $90,000, with $75,000 going for the new town administrator, and the rest to be used to offset what was paid to the previous town administrator to satisfy the contract.

The second article deals with auditor costs which will be roughly $44,000. Acting Town Administrator Mary Calandrella said they had only allocated funds for the previous auditor and when they had to hire another auditing firm, it cost $12,000 more per year.

Both articles would be coming directly out of stabilization which currently holds approximately $281,000.

“We are getting down to what I would say was dangerously low,” said Advisory Chairman Ronald Putnam. “We have no other alternative or other source of funding.”

The advisory board discussed funds from free cash that would be returned first to stabilization before funding anything else unless it is critical.

Both the Advisory Board and Board of Selectmen voted to return cash first to replenish stabilization and Capital Funds before spending.

The third article is a vote to accept a land grant from the state for the purchase of Jewell Hill. The state grant would permanently protect the Jewell Hill Farm, an unprotected 300-acre property in Ashburnham, Ashby and Fitchburg. Select board Chairman Rosemarie Meissner explained that the trustees of reservations are working on providing the town with what would possibly be a short-term loan (60 days) between the closing of the property on May 1 until the release of the grant funds by the state.

“There will be no interest charges to us,” said Meissner. “It’s a zero net-cost deal for us.”

Putnam told the boards that the property only brought $300 in taxes per year to the town.

Meissner explained that because it was agricultural property, there were not a lot of taxes realized by the town.

The advisory board voted to recommend.

Calandrella said she has been in constant contact with the Department of Revenue. The town filed its tax recap December 4, and the tax rate will be hopefully certified soon after. Tax bills will be sent out directly after. Free cash looked to be $819,000. The town is waiting for the DOR certification.

The 2019 audit is almost complete. Calandrella said the draft audit should be sent by auditors in January.

“We are looking pretty good at this point,” said Calandrella.

Meissner noted that the $819,000 could not be released because of most (approximately $600,000) is under tax lien. She said they had to wait for everything to clear through court.

In other news

Calandrella had only been seated as acting town manager for three days when the first snowstorm hit.

“Since it’s only been day three, I was off to a very snowy start with 30″ of snow that hit the town of Ashburnham. We hit the jackpot! It was the top five storms in the 100 year history of record keeping for Ashburnham,” Calandrella declared.

She thanked the Department of Public Works for all their hard work.

The town was awarded $54,000 for a new van for the Council on Ageing. Calandrella thanked COA Coordinator Janet Robbins for applying for the grant.

“It couldn’t have come at a better time because the one we’ve got is pretty much limping on its last tire,” she laughed.

Municipal Opertions / Government and how it is suppose to work:

from the current Open Meeting Law Guide:

What constitutes a public body? While there is no comprehensive list of public bodies, any multi-member board, commission, committee or subcommittee within the executive or legislative branches of state government, or within any county, district, city, region or town, if established to serve a public purpose, is subject to the law. The law includes any multi-member body created to advise or make recommendations to a public body, and also includes the governing board of any local housing or redevelopment authority, and the governing board or body of any authority established by the Legislature to serve a public purpose.

Short version - Templeton Advisory Committee talked about, voted and sent email to selectmen concerning creating ad hoc committee to look at regional school district. As I understand it, Advisory Committee chairman sent it to Chairman of Templeton Board of Selectmen, I never received it in my official selectmen email account. Apparently the BOS chairman never forwarded along. This was mention at BOS meeting on November 21, 2019 meeting.

Here is the problem:

From: AdvisoryCommittee Templeton
Sent: Saturday, November 23, 2019 8:48:01 AM (UTC-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)
To: AdvisoryCommittee Templeton
Subject: FW: Workshop of 12/04

All,

Based on our conversations at the meeting this past Thursday, we will be starting this ad hoc committee on the 4^th.   We will need 2 members from the AC to sit on the committee.  Are there any volunteers?  Please let me know as soon as you can.

Tony

From: Terenzini, Carter
Date: Tuesday, November 19, 2019 at 12:22 PM
To: AdvisoryCommittee Templeton <advisorycommittee@TempletonMA.gov>
Cc: Currie, Michael
Subject: Workshop of 12/04

Good Day Tony:

FYI:

The Chair has put the Committee’s request for an AD Hoc Committee re: Regionalization on the 12/04 agenda of the workshop;  We also anticipate getting our FY ’19 Audit presentation; finally, there may be some matters of interest relative to the escalator factor we use for the education budget(s) in setting the proposed budget and five year revenue and expense projections.

Many Thanks

Carter Terenzini

Town Administrator

Selectmen policies and procedures; exhibit A

Workshops - in part . . . . unless extremely urgent and extraordinary circumstances require immediate action on some matter, no votes will be taken at the work shop."

Failure to pass on to the rest of the board of selectmen is the only reason this has not been dealt with sooner and what would the real emergency be?

First, there is lack of communication and now, it appears policies and procedures will be tossed to the wind because of it. Any resident who wishes to call this as bullshit, I would agree with them. Hard to show people you are doing right when you fail to follow your own policies that you wrote to govern yourself.

While you are busy telling us to do our jobs; consider this:

from the last T/A weekly report:
Weekly Report: I’ve reached out to Tallage Associates to ask for a review of our current tax title to determine if it might be worthwhile to engage in a sale of tax liens. We will do that mid December after Cheryl closes out the FY ’19 lien process (Which each go from $75/lien to a touch above $100/lien on 01/01/20). In a brief look at the Energy Reduction Plan I’ve noticed
there may be a capital project or two that could produce some lower operating costs for the NRSD.

The coop-la on the roof of town hall is being looked at for repair, it has been in rough shape ever since the old school building was turned into a town hall. the estimated cost is 5 figures but further investigation is required. By the way, I consider the reuse of this building a smart move and a way where the town avoided more debt. Is that doing your job?

Tallage is a company that can come to town, look over properties that have back taxes and penalties owed to the town; if they think certain properties are a good investment, they "buy" the back taxes/penalties so the town gets paid and now Tallage will deal with the actual property owner rather than the town having to go through the process of liens / land court.
Templeton has used this company in the past during my first term as selectmen. Is this doing our job?

Can things be done better, absolutely. Am I still looking at how to improve things, yes. Have I forgotten that burned out house on Pleasant Street, no. Am I thinking about communication improvement out of Town Hall, yes, that needs improvement.

Am I going to hold your hand at Town Meeting and turn the pages for you, no. If you want to hold me accountable as a selectmen, I am holding you accountable for being a resident: be sure you know what you are being asked to vote on before you get to town meeting. If you are unsure of what you are being asked because it was not read to you, stand up and ask; "what is the question or motion before us, since you have not read the complete motion to us, I want to be sure I understand what you want me to consider? Put officials on the spot and ask questions. That is my nickels worth.

November 20, 2019 - Special Town Meeting / article 7

How did we get there and why was the change needed?

Begin 2013, two things happened: Advisory Committee created and presented town budget to Town Meeting and a by-law was amended, by town meeting vote. Existing Article III of the by-laws had a section 4 added to create the position of Town Administrator (abolish town coordinator) The budget created by Advisory had multiple errors in it that caused it to basically be off by around $500 thousand dollars. This was later dealt with in 2014 at annual town meeting. Also that town meeting, another by-law change was proposed, warrant article #20: change to the Town budget process. The Advisory recommendation stated in part, "Advisory fully supports a change to the budget process."

There was a substitute motion to to amend by-law article III, section 4, to read: 4. “It shall be duty of the Town Administrator in conjunction with the BOS to consider expenditures and develop a budget for the ensuing fiscal year of the several boards, officers and committees of the town, as prepared by them in such form and detail as prescribed by the Town Administrator.”

That is where some questions came to be; first, did Town Meeting really mean to replace the already in place section 4 with the above, or did the meeting mean to add the above to the existing section 4 or was the intent to create a section 4a? That question sent to town lawyer at the time at the request of the Advisory Committee and the answer in a nut shell was, it should go back to Town Meeting for clarification. Long story short, the board of selectmen in place at the time did not think it was needed and another legal opinion was asked for, by the Town Administrator, which stated the existing by-law section 4 not only gave the budget creation to the T/A and selectmen, but also the right to present it to Town Meeting.

That view has been a point of contention since then and much time, energy, and effort put in to debating it and taking time away from really important things, such as the budget. The other part of the equation is a state law, MGL chapter 39, section 16, which in part, states unless there is a by-law giving the authority to the selectmen to present the budget, that right belongs to Advisory Committee, even as Advisory has not presented the budget to Town Meeting since 2013. The committee, and some other town folk thought it belonged to them, while the T/A, selectmen and others felt it belonged to them, especially since the selectmen / T/A have been doing it for a number of years.

Well, along comes Jeff Bennett, who gets elected to BOS: I brought this up and pushed for the change or addition of wording, so as to once and for all, have it in writing, on paper, who does what, and it needed to go before the people for a vote. Hopefully, from here on out, there will be no more time wasted on debating who does what when it comes to the budget. The article (7) voted in, does not and cannot take away any rights, duties or obligations concerning Advisory Committee. They are still mandated by law to review all articles and make recommendations to Town Meeting and those can be as minimal or as detailed as they wish. They are still required to report to the Town, via the annual town report, what they did during the year. Advisory still has oversight of the town reserve fund (outside of town meeting) the committee still has a say in end of year financial transfers, outside of any town meeting, I have served on the board of selectmen previously, I served on Advisory from August 2015 until May, 2019 and now back on board of selectmen. I think that gives me a good perspective why the change was good for the town and was needed and it was recommended 5 to 1, with one member absent.

A pretty long post on what many may think is boring, but I thought an explanation was needed as there seemed to be some concern at the meeting, I hope this puts those concerns to rest