One Down ...

The Planning Board one year unexpired term ballots were recounted last night.  Mr. Farrell remains the winner, by 14 votes after the recount.  I am guessing last night's recount was as smooth as the process is going to get.  Tonight's recount for the Board of Health should be just as smooth, but applying Murphy's Law ... who knows.

For the political junkie, last night at town hall was like hitting a small trifecta.  Recount in the upstairs auditorium, Con Com in the East Room and Selectmen downstairs in the Banquet Room.  Sad part is I still haven't figured out how to be in three places at once, so I only manged to get bits and pieces out of the two meetings, while centering my attention on the recount.

Probably a good thing, at least for the Selectmen's meeting.  I caught the tail end of a discussion regarding the Assessors.  I didn't hear enough to go into any great detail here.  I did hear enough to make sure I get a great more detail.  For the moment, from what I did hear, and know in general, this one will need to be followed.

If you haven't been paying attention there has been a key change in the Assessors' office.  Indeed the issue involves the level of staffing. It seems the restructuring of the department done about five years ago hasn't quite panned out in the opinion of some.  That really isn't any new "news".  I have been expecting something on this for several years.

The remedy (and as I said I didn't catch enough of it to go into great detail, but to quote the great Yogi) sounds like deja vu all over again.

What I can say is that going into a revaluation year and being less than two weeks from the Annual Town Meeting, to just now be hearing publicly about staffing issues, and potentially another restructuring in any department is a bit mind boggling, especially since the bits and pieces that have been out there for the powers that be to have been able to be gleaned have been there for months.

One has to ask why now?  I can guess the official answer, and hope my guess is wrong.

Moving on ... 

I am getting a big kick out of this whole road work thing.  Seriously.  

Whether Town Meeting decides to do Dogwood or Cooke, I personally am not going to loose one moment of sleep.  It is Town Meeting's decision, not mine, not any individual Commissioner, not any collective board.

Don't get me wrong, I believe the recommendation is extremely sound.  In the end though one must accept the decisions of Town Meeting.

The loudest lament going around right now is why should Fin Com decide which roads get done. I have been told BPW should.  After all they are elected. Fin Com should only recommending an amount.

Well there is an answer to that.

However I just deleted the end of this piece with that answer.  I essentially had taken that BPW argument to its logical conclusion.  It was a pretty good argument on my part, if I do say so myself.  I obviously changed my mind about providing an "advanced" copy  of it.

I am guessing more than a few of you can connect the dots to the logical conclusion to the "just give us the money, we know best" argument.

What is disheartening is the fact that the people making it can't.

Enough for today.  Once again running a bit late.  take care and be safe.