Record Keeping at the Planning Board

Draft-of-the-Planning-Board-meeting-of-October-13-2009
M.G.L., c.39, s.23B provides in part: “A governmental body shall maintain accurate records of its meetings, setting forth the date, time, place, members present or absent and action taken at each meeting, including executive sessions.” c.66, s.5A further prescribes the Board’s obligation to keep records of meetings. The picture on the left shows an image of the actual draft of the minutes to the Planning Board meeting held on the 13th of October. The Draft does not mention any actions taken besides the approval of the minutes of the previous meeting. What is going on with the Planning Board and how did I end up with this draft?
Read more to find out»


Posted on 4 Nov 2009, 00:01 - Category: Ongoing And Past Litigation
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Comments:

Posted on 5 Nov 2009, 8:36 by Cares for Holland
Poor Planning
I remember voting to borrow one million dollars at a town meeting to construct a new Police/Fire public safety complex for our town. A plan was submitted to our town to construct a shared complex on the Circle H property off Stafford Road that would meet the needs of Holland for decades to come. The cost of this complex including engineering fee's was estimated at just under 800,000 dollars turn key including the land that Mr Peddit agreed to sell for just over 150 thousand dollars.
Earl Johnson was sitting on the Planning Board, and Howard Fife and Paul Gillis were sitting on the Board of Selectmen. Rather than spend the funds in the way the voters directed, our Fire Chief Paul Foster and the other planners spent over a quarter of a million dollars of the funds on a so called "feasability study" to construct a Taj Mahal type edifice on land where the senior center now sits.
Part of the project was to Hire Paul Foster as a Full time Fire Chief and staff the department full time.
Foster tried to get another million dollars during one of the subsequent town meetings for the job and was shot down.
We never did get a public safety complex and only around 200 thousand dollars out of the million dollars was spent on a pole barn for the fire department. The remaining funds were miss directed by Officials to the Highway Department.
Now our Police and Fire Departments are forced to occupy substandard space due to the miss direction of those funds ($800,000) by Foster, Johnson, and other Officials of our community most of which still serve.
Thanks Guys. You are Official Schmucks for the way you handled the million dollars we gave you for our safety complex.
Please provide the taxpayers with an accounting for these funds.
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Posted on 5 Nov 2009, 20:37 by Holland Taxpayer working for a MA Atty.
Pay Attention
First and foremost - The Planning Board minutes (as pictured), are illegal by law. However they do say draft so until we see the actual approved minutes there is no violation. But we'll be watching!!! So please show minutes when approved.

Secondly, why does the Fire Chief need more $$$ from the town (Holland) when he has a good paying FT job??? And his wife (Ruth) earns a satisfactory income as well..... Sounds like a case of the rich get richer and the poor....... But please - not on the backs of the Holland taxpayers....
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