Any board
member who has a question or needs information from the town’s attorney is
requested to submit it in writing to their chairman of their board and the
chairman will hand this to the town administrator who will forward the request
to the Attorney’s office and the information or answer will come back through
the same procedure in reverse.
Some people
have been calling this censorship but it is the exact opposite.
Now
everything will be documented in writing and every board member will see the
same exact question and the same exact answer.
In the past
if a board member “John Doe” contacted the attorney and asked a question there
would be no documentation of the question or the answer and the rest of the
board members would have to rely on “John Doe’s interpretation” of the information,
as you could imagine false or misunderstood information could and has been
relayed back to the entire board in the past. This will also prevent duplicate request, all costing us big money in legal fees
The town’s attorney
states this is a common policy for most towns in NH and is the right thing to
do.
This new
policy came to be after Historic District Commission alternate Julia Ferrari
contacted the town’s attorney last year a dozen times asking the same question,
costing us over $4,000 in legal fees. If any of you have dealt with her you
understand she has the habit of repeatedly asking the same question over and
over hoping to finally get the answer she is looking for. When using this
strategy with an attorney it gets very expensive. This entire event was reflected in the Select
board’s minutes over several meetings, they are not on the web site but you can
go to the town hall and find these. It
should be noted the HDC never discussed or voted on having alternate Ferrari call
the attorney and her claims that the HDC chairman could not do it because he
was unavailable was denied by the chairman 2 times in front of the Select
board.
Alternate
Ferrari is now a full member, how did that happen?
Most
recently we have Planning Board alternate Jen Bellan absolutely ignoring this
policy and contacting the town’s attorney on her own (13 pages worth)And as a result we have received a very interesting letter from the town attorney
Upton &
Hatfield. You can read this letter on the very bottom of the select boards
minutes 11/7 2012 http://winchesternh.virtualtownhall.net/Pages/WinchesterNH_Selectminutes/I03B1A3AE
Planning
Board Minutes 10/22 2012http://winchesternh.virtualtownhall.net/Pages/WinchesterNH_PlanningMinutes/I03B0B68C
Reflect the chairman asking Jen Bellan why she
continues to not follow policy and asked her if she understands the policy or
needs a copy of it, Bellan states she knows the policy but will continue
contacting the town’s attorney going against the rules.
Ok people
how much money do you think her repeatedly contacting the attorney with 13
pages of false information is costing us tax-payers? Without a doubt Bellan has
stated she understands the rules, so if she is willing to keep ignoring them
these legal bills should be turned over to her to pay, not us tax payers. Remember
she is only an alternate.When you read the attorneys letter you will basically see him tell Bellan that she does not have a clue what she is talking about, she does not understand how to interpret laws and all the false information she is spreading around will be used against the planning board in the upcoming law suit against the planning board.
What will it
takes to get some of these planning board members off the board before they
bankrupt our town and us individually?
9 comments:
Holy smokes I just read the letter and with the statements that our attorney is making the select board cant remove her? why not she is not a elected official she is only alternate. Because the board refused to make her a full member i think that is why she is pulling all this B.S. but all it does is prove that she can not ever be a full member on any board.
Bellan, Gordon and Moser have to go before its to late.
How come you didn't mention Mosers lovely letter, nice grammar Brian,on the bottom of the Planning board minutes about his adventures at the local bars?
Are you serious, After reading the letter from the towns attorney I sure hope our selectman boot her off and ban her from any future town boards. If this women insist on her letters to the attorney she had better be paying the legal bill. If we taxpayers are paying for her rules violations then there should be some Hell to pay.
I guess my question is if we have this policy in place why would our attorney answer a phone or open a letter that came from our town without the proper procedure?
And I totally agree Miss Bellan should be the one paying this bill what gives a alternate the right to break the rules?
Sadly people like her and Kim Gordon don't work for their money so they have no idea what a burden their antics are putting on the working tax payer.
I can not believe her antics and total disregard for the rules It seems like her and Kim Gordon hold everyone else to a very high standard of behavior but apparently the rules do not apply to them Jen you need to pack up and get on the same bus with Kim Maybe if the both of you found employment you would not have to much time to be wasting tax payers money Shame on you
Why is it always Winchester? Why cant we ever get dedicated people to run for anything. Seems like the voters have no good choices come election time and thats how these people get in! Then you have aternates now loosing all sense of all reality. How in the world can we clean house, Its to the point having no boards is a better choice then having the one's we do now.
I think part of the problem is the people who don't work or don't have employment have nothing better to do and have the spare time to join these boards. But these people also have no concept how hard it is to work and earn money for paying out taxes etc. I think it clouds their judgment and they have no concept of reality.
Just read the minutes to all the different boards and this may be proven, our board members who have jobs and work for a living seem to be more in tune with the working tax payers, then you have board members who don't work and all they do is cost us money one way or another.
Wait a minute ? Is this the same Jen Bellan who doesn't have a job or is not a tax paying property owner?
no wonder why she doesn't care about following rules and costing us unnecessary money it wont affect her. Time to give her the boot, maybe time to boot the whole Planning board and start all over again!
Judging solely by it's blogs, Winchester must suffer a chronic shortage of torches and pitchforks...
Sadly its not about a shortage of pitchforks and torches, Its a shortage of voters informing themselves with knowledge before heading to the poles. I ask people on a daily basis are you aware of this or that and they say "NO"
I ask them if the read minutes or attend meetings and get the same answer. Well how to hell can you make good decisions when you enter the voting booth?
Change is not going to happen in this town and we will not fix our dysfunctional boards until people take a few moments and arm themselves with information, seriously who cant take 10 minutes a month and read all the board minutes posted on the town web site and this one and have a more clearer idea of whats happening before they make the mistake of voting these idiots into office?
Most of the responsibility of whats happening here falls squarely on the voters shoulders.
If you cant arm yourself with facts and info then do us a favor and don't vote.
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