You can't blame the new Town Manager because the Middleboro Board of Selectmen failed to explain the surrounding issues to him.
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During the BOS Meeting (Monday, September 8, 2008), the Town ownership and disposition of the Rock Village School on Highland St. was discussed.
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The sale of property by the Town of Middleboro, and specifically by the retired Town Manager, Jack Healey, has an inflammatory history that Town voters are unlikely to dismiss as quickly as the BOS. (Matt Carroll of the Boston Globe also wrote about some of the questionable dealings, but the articles are no longer in the Globe archives.)
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Jack Healey presided over poorly advertised Town property auctions himself on the pretext of 'Saving the Town the money of hiring an auctioneer.' Sorry, Jack, but not all of us were or are that stupid. Jack Healey
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Should someone be unfamiliar with auctions, and require an explanation: an auctioneer charges a 'Buyer's Premium,' which means the Town nets X dollars, the auctioneer receives a % of X dollars, above and beyond the bid price. (If you read some of the auction ads in a newspaper, you'll see a Buyer's Premium disclosed.)
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Simply put: Let's say the Buyer's Premium is 9%, you bid $100 for an item, the Buyer's Premium that goes directly to the auctioneer is $9. You pay $109.
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Those land parcels that were auctioned, even at the height of the real estate market, were sold far below the revenue they should have provided for the Town. Casino property for $14,000 an acre?
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And then there was the Perry Property. And Marsha, I spoke to you, personally about this. And we might discuss the school buildings that had been allowed to fall into disrepair. And how 'bout the Cherry St. property? Wasn't that the one where Town Counsel represented both the Town and the Buyers? Or could we toss in the Green School that is slowing rotting? The Washburn property?
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Since Middleboro wasn't on Mr. Cristello's radar when this transpired, he wouldn't have known. But most of the same Board of Selectmen stills sits there. They are the ones who remained silent as Town assets decayed or were given away without generating the revenue they should have. Taxpayers were shortchanged.
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And the taxpayers remember!
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And the Middleboro Board of Selectmen have apparently forgotten the 2007 ATM when voters unanimously REFUSED to vote the Rock Village School to the BOS to be sold. (There was another parcel, as well.) Voters figured out that they couldn't trust the BOS to make the wisest decisions.
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Victor Sylvia stood up at that ATM and spoke about the Rock Village School and that the land had been given to the Town to be used for education. Others made comments about the questionable decisions of the BOS.
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The Rock Village School became vacant because the church group that had occupied the building was delinquent in their rent, hadn't maintained the building, as was required in their lease and Town Counsel opined that occupancy by the church was illegal.
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In the intervening + 1 year, has anyone heard mention of RFPs (Request for Proposals)? Has there been any solicitation for ideas about using the property for community purposes?
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Instead the BOS is considering using the Rock Village School property for storage by the DPW to allow the Forest St. building, where the DPW currently has storage, to be used by veterans' groups. Or, possibly selling the Rock Village School property, in a depressed real estate market, which would allow for residential construction .
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At an earlier date, the BOS established a policy in which, land that could be used for residential construction would not be sold because real estate property costs the Town money in terms of services, specifically cost of education. Wasn't that the issue with the Cherry St. property?
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This one clearly bears watching because mostly the same short-sighted BOS is in place.
4 comments:
What a breath of fresh air Mr. Cristello is after the hysteria Healey created over every petty crisis! You were right about this. D'Agostino is mismanaging Mansfield. Yunits is lobbying for the power plant. Now the BOS needs to be replaced with competent people.
If handled properly, maybe the RVS could function as well as the Soule Farm. It seems to have adequate parking for community activities, fair sized building, good location for South Middleboro. Is anyone interested? I spoke with one person who was, but the town seemed disinterested at the time. I wonder if he spoke with Jack Healey.
I like Jack. He's personable and has done a lot of good things for the town outside of his official capacity. But he failed to continue to improve his management skills over time and got lazy. He should have resigned several years before his retirement for the good of the town. And there were several BOS's that should have fired him for insubordination or incompetence. Poor Southbridge!
We force ourselves to watch the meetings at home so we can yell at the tv. First Adam whined about no one attending meetings, now he says 'thanks to my policy of posting information on the pathetic web site, we keep folks out of the meeting.' People are watching, Adam, and not all of us are stupid. There was other stupidity you could comment on about that meeting. Spataro finally figured out how to use his computer and that there are other town web sites beyond the borders. Hurray for Steve! Someone needs to rehearse Aunt Bea before the meetings for God's sake!
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