Last April, Town Meeting approved Community Preservation Act (CPA) funding of $250,000 to provide exterior renovations for Exchange Hall, a South Acton landmark that has fallen into disrepair.
But don't think the building has been abandoned, although it may look that way. Instead, it is owned by a private company that sought and was granted public funds for this renovation. How and why did this happen?
I believe there were three factors at work.
First, CPA money is raised from property taxes and matched by the state. About $1 million is raised each year, and for many people, half of this $1 million is "found money" that the town can spend like play money because it isn't raised from local property taxes.
This seems to create the attitude among some town officials that any project with merit can be funded because everything ends up costing Acton taxpayers half.
So we have seen the local CPA Committee fund several projects at levels higher than requested by applicants. That is no typo. If there is one thing that shows an utter disregard for spending taxpayer funds, it is this. In fact, the CPA Committee is hard pressed to spend the money it is allocated and rather than having a high bar towards projects, the bar has been set very low. This results in several questionable projects being funded, including the mysterious "potato cave" that cost taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars, and after a couple of years of archaeological work, we still don't know who built this structure or why.
Second, this lack of rigor seems to have infected the overall approval process of the other major boards. They seem content to approve whatever the local CPA Committee recommends without reservation. And, of course, Town Meeting then rubber-stamps what the boards have given the green light to.
This approval process is apparently done under the mistaken belief that boards higher up in the chain of command need to almost automatically approve what lower boards have done in order to support their good work. If the CPA Committee works tirelessly to craft a 10-project funding proposal, then the boards seem to look at that as a package and maybe they feel that the CPA Committee's hard work would be wasted if the package isn't approved in its entirety.
Third, and most telling, many of our volunteers are more concerned with results than process. This is a critical mistake if you want consistency in your local government decisions.
So if the desired result is the renovation of Exchange Hall, one way to achieve that result is to provide money to a private owner to help support that renovation. If the owner can convince the town that he needs that money or the project may not get done, and the town leadership wants the project done, then they need to come up with the money.
So what seems most important are not the lines that are crossed or the rules of thumb that are broken, what is most important is the end result. If we can get Exchange Hall renovated, then it is worth doing, even if a few rules are bent.
The fact that the owner's renovation scheme is unlikely to be approved by lenders is beside the point, even if true. In my view, the town should never have committed to provide public monies to a private organization.
Of course, it would be best if we simply banned such a practice in the future. But the problem with precedent is that we have bent the rules once for a "good cause," why shouldn't we bend them again for another?
Which brings me to my final point. My garage door has a giant hole in it. It was poorly constructed and my daughter managed to kick her soccer ball right through the door panel. What is left of the door is unsightly and needs to be repaired. See both Photos.
I think the town would benefit from removing this eyesore from my neighborhood and I'd like to urge the CPA Committee, the major boards, and eventually Town Meeting to approve my proposal to fix the garage door. Of course, a new panel would still leave the other rotting panels in place, so it really makes sense to just replace both garage doors. I have new ones all picked out.
And I'm not going to replace the doors until the town helps fund the project. Please support this project and help make Acton a more beautiful place to live! The total cost is only $52,000. See my CPA Spreadsheet and Application attached.
Update - June 24, 2009
At the April, 2009 Town Meeting, the CPC proposed and Town Meeting approved, spending over $42,000 on the "John Robbins House" renovations, a privately owned historic building. An attempt by Allen Nitschelm to remove the funding for this project was defeated. See Article 27 of the Town Meeting Abstract.
Allen Nitschelm is a former member of the Finance Committee. Read why he was removed HERE.
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