Town Meeting

More on the town meeting: Article 13 seeks $15,000 to hire an engineering consultant to study the Annex (that's the white building between town hall and the north firehouse). After last August's rejection by town voters of the Annex renovation proposal, the Selectboard appointed a committee to study and report back on what to do with the Annex. The committee did so, and the Selectboard (one member in particular) was so unhappy with the report (primarily because it focused too much on new space for the police department) that the Selectboard decided not to put any proposal on the warrant for this meeting. But rather than accepting defeat, the Selectboard voted to seek money for yet another study. If that study's conclusions don't fit with the Selectboard's views of what the Annex should become, I bet they'll reject it again.

I'm pretty confident that town voters (in a representative vote, i.e., with more voters than the 60 to 80 who seem always to vote for bigger government) will never, ever approve spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on the Annex, regardless of the purpose. Never, ever. So spending $15,000 on another study is just a waste of money. And approving this money is just holding out false hope to the Annex proponents that they can eventually slip through their plans for it.

For years, the Selectboard has ignored my suggestion for what to do with it: Sell it or rent it to someone. It's been sitting there producing no benefit to the town for decades. Stop studying and dreaming, and do something meaningful.

P.S.: This issue is another reason why we should amend the bylaws to increase the quorum requirement. Otherwise the day may come when the meeting is stacked with proponents and they slip through something the vast majority are opposed to.