Town Meeting Votes Should Be Upheld

When Town Meeting approves an article with conditions, that should mean something.

Town Meeting approved a small subsidy for some rehabilitation work on Exchange Hall back in 2008. Even though the building is a landmark in South Acton, it is owned by a private company and thus produced an awkward agreement to spend public funds to replace the roof, some woodwark, and apply paint. This was done with the opposition of some in town, including me, to giving public monies to for-profit private groups.

What made this decision particularly painful was the state of disrepair that the building had fallen into. It seems that the building's owner perhaps felt that the more dilapidated the building looked, the more desperate residents would be to having it repaired. According to an appraisal done at the time (2008), the building was worth nothing in the condition it was in.

So Town Meeting went ahead and authorized $231,000 to be expended, but only once the full rehabilitation was complete. Taxpayer money, we were repeatedly told, would be "the last money in." The total project was estimated at about $2 million.

The work was never done to completion--not even close....

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