NEWFANE — “Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” Has not the definition of insanity attributed to Einstein sunk in? Voting (twice) to replace Newfane's town offices for $1 million, at a time of general financial uncertainty, is a reckless challenge to everyone's already-stretched budgets.
The defenders of this absurdly overpriced project have become so protective of their pet project that they completely missed the point of the voters' rejection the first time: It costs too much money.
We attended the special informational meeting on Oct. 29 concerning the proposal for the new town office building. What we came away with was that no building site has been locked in contractually (and certainly not included in the price tag). No depiction of the new building has been circulated so that we can see what it might look like, and the cheaper option of remodeling instead of replacing had been given little serious consideration.
Indeed, the most compelling and oft-repeated rationale for going forward with this project is that the end result - whatever that is - will be “new.”
All this was voted down once before. Proponents say that's because they weren't clear enough explaining their plan.
Well, they were clear on Saturday. Time to vote this muddy proposal down again.