BRATTLEBORO — At a recent Brattleboro Selectboard meeting, the board voted 3-2 to go ahead and add interest for another $4 million bond for the Police/Fire Station Project to this year's budget. This additional money will be voted upon by Town Meeting members in March.
Although I understand the wish of some board members to move this project ahead for the sake of the members of the police and fire departments, I strongly urged them not to do so.
Instead, I urged them to set a vote on a new bond later in 2015 after a thorough public process to review the plans and costs of all three parts of this project.
I believe that last year's budget was rejected because of the additional money for the Police/Fire Project, and I fear that the same will happen this year if we don't have a public process first.
I believe that most voters support the police and fire departments and want them to have improved working conditions, but I do not believe that many citizens in town are convinced yet that we can afford a project of this scale or that we need all things that are part of the plans.
Voters need to be brought up to speed about many questions. For example:
• Why the Police and Fire Station cannot be combined on the Elliot Street site,
• Why the West Brattleboro station needs a $1.2 million renovation and addition instead of the $250,000 needed for health and safety improvements,
• Why the Municipal Center would not serve as the best site for the Police Department.
I'm sure there are other questions.
I had hoped that before Town Meeting members were asked to approve more money, the Citizens Advisory Committee, whose volunteers have been diligently meeting on this project for months, would present their recommendations at a public meeting for all voters.
The committee was charged with overseeing the plans and seeing if there were ways to cut costs. Although costs seem to have been reduced, I believe the project is still projected at more than $13 million.
I know this committee has worked hard, and I would like to hear more about its members' experience and their recommendations.
Some of the money being requested would go toward purchasing land or property on Putney Road for a new Police Station. This might indeed be the right site, but I believe that the whole town should discuss it before we fund it.
I hope that any public meetings would not just provide information about the plans for each part of the project, but that questions and input from the public would be actively encouraged and that the information gleaned from such a discussion might even affect the plans and costs.
Could people in the community who have not yet been heard have creative ideas? Do we need to ask the townspeople how high a price tag we can afford?
We do not have time at Representative Town Meeting for this kind of lengthy discussion, and not all voters are included.
Now is the time for your voice to be heard.
If you want the public process to happen before, not after, an Annual Representative Town Meeting vote, contact the Selectboard or attend the Selectboard meetings on Jan. 20 and 29, when the board will finalize the proposed budget.
Let's not put the cart before the horse.