Residents Deserve Substantive Discussion, Not Political Stunts

Over the past few years, many of our town’s most important financial decisions have been guided by the short-term political gain they will generate and not the obvious long-term repercussions that accompany these decisions. When our water and sewer rates were minimally reduced two years ago, residents were given the appearance of lowered fees. However, this token gesture had real ramifications that resulted in our emergency reserves being drained. Most recently, we have seen this type of impulsive planning in the proposed trash fee elimination. At the January 9 Board of Selectmen meeting, Selectman Boussy proposed getting rid of this fee with no other data point than the town’s available free cash amount. This proposal was met with enthusiasm from Selectwoman Colarusso and bewilderment from the other board members who were unaware they would be ambushed with this request and forced to vote on allocating nearly 3.5 million dollars that evening. After a brief discussion, Selectwoman Colarusso made a motion to eliminate the trash fee refusing to extend the most basic professional curtesy and allow the discussion to continue. To be clear, this motion was made against the advice of the Town Administrator, without the input of any other town committee or board, in advance of having a budget and in violation of the bylaw that prohibits using free cash to pay a recurring fee. I am grateful, that unlike the water and sewer fee reduction, the majority of the Board voted against the short-sighted trash fee elimination. Since that time, Selectwoman Colarusso has posted multiple graphics to social media and written several articles criticizing the decision of the board not to eliminate the trash fee at that time. However, creating these distortions and distractions is the extent of her “fight” to eliminate the trash fee. She has not requested that the trash fee be placed on the agenda in the two subsequent board meetings or indicated she would like to discuss it at any future meeting. She has not reached out to any other town committee to arrange a joint meeting as requested by Selectwoman MacNeill. She has not justified the urgency of the vote in January without a budget in place. She has offered no insight into how the annual fee will be paid after the free cash funds are depleted in less than three years. Put simply, her fight for you, the resident, began and ended with one discussion. However, the public dispute with her fellow Selectmen continues with a never-ending barrage of divisive and revisionist attacks online and in print. Seemingly also never-ending is her purely partisan attacks against State Representative Michael Day and State Senator Jason Lewis who find themselves weekly targets in her newspaper article that demonstrates scoring political points in her capacity as Republican State Committeewoman outweighs her commitment to work collaboratively for Stoneham as a Selectwoman. I would ask residents to also consider that while Selectwoman Colarusso has been writing about fighting for you, other elected officials, town department heads, town employees and local volunteers are delivering on their promise to serve, protect and improve our community. We now have an Open Space and Recreation Plan that will allow us to leverage state funding that will improve our parks and public land. A Housing Production Plan is being developed that will help safeguard the town against undesirable housing projects and help us comply with 40B regulations. Our Department of Public Works continues to offer good services for residents while operating on a smaller budget and with fewer staff members than comparable towns. Our Substance Abuse Coalition has secured a multiyear federal grant to battle opioid addiction in our community. While Selectwoman Colarusso is writing about tackling these issues, our town employees and volunteers are realizing the potential of our town in innovative and cost saving ways. The Board of Selectmen is not beholden to the decisions of its predecessors or the campaign promises of its current members. We are beholden to the residents who entrusted us to make sound financial decisions. Allocating 3.5 million dollars without a cursory understanding of the repercussions of that decision would have been irresponsible. Using social media and local media outlets to suggest otherwise is an unnecessary diversion that weakens public trust in the Board of Selectmen and ultimately hurts our town. George Seibold Chairman of the Board of Selectmen