Living in A Parallel Universe ?

The local papers have had a few great quotes  recently.

In the first situation, a local Hysterical Commission member asked the BOS to " table any action on Clark-Haddad until November so her panel could develop some “objective criteria” about the old building; and perhaps conduct a community visioning session related to its future viability".  Apparently the past 3-4 years that the building has been left there to rot were insufficient time to establish "criteria".

And, I have always believed you can NEVER have enough "community visioning" !!

Can we just cut to the chase -- I would be amazed  to see Town Meeting vote to spend $150,000 tax dollars (CPA funds ARE tax dollars!) to move a decrepit building across Town to give the local Chamber of Commerce a new clubhouse.  A cute clubhouse will not bring in the development or tourism dollars this Town needs.  Improve the beaches, clean-up the marina, improve public safety (on land -- stop chasing Fireboats!), and begin to develop a track record of cooperating with -- not extorting -- what few local developers still exist.

Speaking of developers ...

The second article involved local developer Tom Tsakalos' interest in building a Town Library on land he owns in the Golden Triangle area.  

Tsakalos is a guy who could not only make a silk purse out of  a sow's ear, but he would still have enough material left over to upholster a couch.  Tom has shown over and over that he can get the job done.  Anything substantial that has been built in Sandwich over the past decade was probably built by Tom.  I would be willing to bet the second largest taxpayer in Town (behind the Power Plant) would be Tsakalos.  At the rate the plant is going, he may soon be THE largest.

What is the response to his generous offer from the Library folks?  “The challenge here is to determine if our vision for a library matches his vision for a library.  ... I’m not sure his building will be what we've envisioned for a new library.".

A better answer would have been, "Thank you very much!  Welcome to the future site of Tsakalos Memorial Library".  Here's what I've envisioned for a new library -- a practical building of sufficient size and with appropriate parking and sewage capacity (ie. unlike the recent Town Hall reno).  It would be nice to have a building built by a guy who actually builds buildings AND maintains them.  It's the "maintaining" part where we seem to have problems.  We don't need more meeting rooms, we don't need pizza rooms, we don't need to provide teleconferencing facilities.  In this age of Nooks, Kindles, and Tablets, we probably don't even need a lot of room for books!

Of course, this probably would mean giving up the old library -- because if we can't afford to operate the existing one, there ain't no way we're going to be able to afford a second one!

In the third situation, a selectman expressed concern that a potential access road being proposed by Tsakalos -- to be built at his own expense to access land parcels owned by both him and the Town might "interfere" with the Pop Warner Field.  This concern isn't even the tail wagging the dog -- this is a flea wagging the dog!!  The land under that field was loaned to the Pop Warner organization.  Please don't tell me we gave away the right to relocate that field so we can access the 50+ acres behind it!

So, while we're wasting time arguing about spending money we don't have to move a building we don't need;  thinking up reasons why a $15 million library is better than a free one; and arguing whether a free road is A Bad Thing, we aren't talking about the looming deficit, the failing infrastructure, declining State Aid, the reduction in Power Plant tax revenue, or the fact that the Teachers Contract has been in negotiations for two years.  We also aren't talking publicly about a new Public Safety Building, the consolidation of Town offices, the impending renovation/decay of the Wing School, rising labor costs, or how we plan to maintain the new (almost) $1 million fireboat that we asked Uncle Sam for (maybe we could store it in the Clark-Haddad building?).

Beam me up Scotty ...