Posted Oct 14, 2009 at 12:01 AM

 

TEMPLETON -- As an Oct. 26 public meeting with state officials to discuss the closing of the Templeton Developmental Center looms, Board of Selectmen Chairman Gerald Skelton Tuesday addressed the confusion surrounding the reuse committee for the center, while reiterating his opposition to the closing of the facility. Mr. Skelton discussed Tuesday the need for the public meeting to address the issues that have arisen as a result of the state’s decision to close the center, particularly over the role the reuse committee would take during the expected closing of the center, slated for 2013. While Mr. Skelton is supposed to be on the committee -- serving as its chairman -- the select board chairman reiterated his stance in opposition to the closing of the center. “I have a problem with being on a committee when I don’t believe in reusing (the center). I think it should stay open,” he said. The state Senate announced in May the passage of an amendment that would create a reuse committee in Templeton for the purpose of allowing the town to become more involved as the decisions about the center and its lands are made. The committee would include three Templeton representatives -- one from the select board, one from the Planning Board, and one member to be chosen by the selectmen. In addition, the committee would feature one representative each from the Community Preservation Committee, the state Division of Capital Asset Management and Maintenance and the legal guardians of the clients currently housed at the center. Since the announcement, Mr. Skelton said there were numerous town residents who expressed confusion over what the role of the reuse committee would be in the center’s closing. “There’s a lot of people in town that were confused over what ‘reuse’ meant, instead of not closing it,” he said. “So we’re having this meeting to get everyone together because it’s going to affect the whole area, including the employees of the center.” The chairman said that in speaking with Robert Hubbard, Gardner’s director of planning and development, and John Henshaw, chairman of the Community Preservation Committee, while the opposition in town to closing the center has been strong, they advised filling the committee seats in order to be in compliance with the amendment. “We have to go down two paths here,” he said. “We have to get on the path that we don’t want to close, but yet we have to fill that committee.” Mr. Skelton will be meeting with both Mr. Hubbard and Mr. Henshaw to create an agenda for the meeting. Currently, state Sen. Stephen Brewer, D-Barre, and State Rep. Anne Gobi, D-Spencer, are the only members of the committee. Mr. Skelton said he expected a large turnout for the meeting, particularly if all, or a majority, of the center’s 450 employees attend. The public meeting on the closing of the center is scheduled for 7 p.m. Oct. 26 at Narragansett Middle School.

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.