February 26,
2010
MEMBER
EDITORIAL
Why blame
only Scott Gross? |
In his column last week, Guy Caron makes it
clear that he blames Scott Gross, chairman of the Board
of Selectmen, for the increase of $486,564 in our town
budget.
I disagree with Mr. Caron (it's not the first
time). I just finished reading the minutes of a
meeting the selectmen held just before the start of the
town deliberative session. There is no question
Mr. Gross bears a large part of the blame. But not
all of it.
When the meeting began, Mr. Gross actually said he wanted
the board to go ahead and support the budget committee's
number of $19.2 million. It was Phil D'Avanza who
told everyone he would not. On the opposite side
of the spectrum, Nick Campasano said he wouldn't vote to
amend the budget committee's budget at all.
So Mr. Gross tried to
increase the budget by around $20,000 only. From
what I've been told by a lot of people, including some
budget committee members, this would have been
acceptable to them.
But only Mr. Gross and Steve
Fournier voted in favor! The rest - including Mr. Campasano - voted against it!
Then Mr. Campasano tried to
increase the budget by a single dollar for
reconsideration purposes later that night, but didn't
even get a second to his motion.
It got even
stranger. Right after, Mr. D'Avanza made a motion
to increase the budget by $486,564 that was seconded by
Fournier who had just a minute before voted to increase
it only by $20,000! And guess what - both Gross
and Fournier voted yes! So did Mr. D'Avanza and
Vivian Blondeau. Only Mr. Campasano voted no.
If that sounds confusing
to you, you're not alone. None of what I read in
the minutes makes much sense. Neither does Scott
Gross telling the board he wanted to support the budget
committee's figure then voted to increase it by such a
large amount. But Steve Fournier was just as
inconsistent in his voting. So why blame only
Scott Gross?
I wonder what everyone
was smoking that night? I wish I had some - it
might help ease the pain of the tax increase they all
just slammed us with.
Thanks to this mess, I
for one am not voting for any new trucks, ball fields,
land buys, lake cleanups or anything else. I can't
afford it. None of us can anymore.
|
