Lebanon Loses a Trusted Super Hero and Gains a "Secret Society" at Tonight's Budget Committee Meeting.

Is this an "OPINION" piece??
I'd like to say it was, but it's not. It's the facts, with a little personal emotion thrown in because I'm still in shock and disbelief...........

LMTS returned home from the Lebanon Budget  Committee Meeting at 9:17 pm. At the time of this writing, it is just shortly after 10 pm, and for the first time in a long time, I think I am truly afraid of what is happening in the little nooks and crannies of the Town's Boards and Committees. If you like a great horror story, read on. If you're a little squeamish and have nightmares easily, it might not be the best article for you to read before bed.
On this evening's Budget Committee agenda, was the Lebanon Road Commissioner, Tom Torno.
To be honest, I expected a hard line of questioning, however, what I was handed has me completely aghast. YUP, I actually used the word "aghast". For those of you not brought up by a family of English Professors and Librarians, let me help you out a bit with that word.

 

a·ghast

əˈɡast/

adjective

adjective: aghast

filled with horror or shock.

"when the news came out they were aghast"

 

You will all have to excuse me for using such an odd expression when writing an article about a Budget Committee meeting, however, that's the feeling that you're left with when one of your personal "hometown hero" takes 5 minutes of his time and dashes everything you believed to be true of them.

A few minutes into the "old business" portion of the meeting, Budget Committee member, Chris Gilpatrick, requested that the Committee enter into "Executive Session". If you know anything about "Executive Session" a board or committee will use their rights of Executive Session to speak about such thing as an employee reprimand, personal and private records of a town resident, personnel files, or similar things which are covered under State Law.

Selectman Thompson asked Gilpatrick what the grounds were for entering Executive Session, and Gilpatrick stated that he had something to say to his fellow committee members that he didn't want anyone else to hear. Thompson related to Gilpatrick that he had to state the reason for Executive and that it had to fall into the guidelines set by Maine State Law. Gilpatrick then called for a legal ruling and Thompson whipped out the smart phone and called Town Attorney Ann Freeman, of Bernstein, Shur Law Firm, the Town's legal advisors.

Now, just saying, there was not one mention of the $265.00 an hour figure that is usually tossed about whenever someone asks for a legal decision..........Thompson was on that smartphone and the number was dialed faster than you can manage the words "LEGAL DILEMMA".

Thompson spent 17 minutes on speaker phone with Atty Freeman where the Attorney outlined the handful of reasons under which a committee could enter Executive Session and Gilpatrick's reason of "I want everyone here to know what's really going on here in town before they open their mouths," was not one of the valid reasons.

I personally questioned Mr. Gilpatrick as to why he didn't do what he was always saying others should do, and just get it out in the open. Put it out there. Tell the truth. Speak your mind.

But Mr. Gilpatrick used the same "tactics" that others have used to keep me quiet and told me I didn't have the right to speak.

There it went.

My respect for Mr. Gilpatrick, who wears his surname emblazoned in bright yellow across his chest like a great big SUPERMAN "S", my personal hometown hero, who says what he means, and means what he says, who I believed had no "hidden agenda", and who I thought would never hide behind a "public participation policy" to keep residents from asking a question, went RIGHT out the window.

And to make things even better, he took things a step further, calling for the Budget Committee members to leave their seats and head out into the parking lot with him for a "private conversation".

Budget Committee members stared at him blankly for a few minutes, Ms. Harris-Howard wondered aloud how they were going to keep the entire conversation out of the Committee minutes, and then as Gilpatrick left the building, unbelievably, three of the Budget Committee members left their meeting and followed him out into the parking lot. Laura Bragg, Skip Wood, and Bettie Harris-Howard dutifully followed outdoors into membership of the "secret society".

Could I have followed?? You bet. It's a public parking lot owned by the taxpayers of Lebanon. But thinking about it for a minute or two, I decided that my own call for transparency and an end to secrecy would be compromised if I followed. So I stayed put.

Other residents in attendance, Dana Coull, Jim Durgin, and non-resident Jeanette Lemay, exchanged a few glances with obvious nervous disbelief, and the remaining Budget Committee members, Corinna Cole, Jeri Brasko, and Nancy Neubert seemed to twist just a bit uneasily in their seats. Ms. Lemay's video camera remained rolling for the unscheduled break in the budget discussions.

I felt bad for Tom Torno, Road Commissioner, who was only in attendance to discuss his budget and was now somehow sucked into the drama that he tries so hard to avoid.

Selectman Thompson stated that if the missing members were out of the building more than 5 minutes, he was going to close the meeting and lock the doors, preventing the small group from returning, and Secretary Nancy Neubert went to the door to relay the information. Selectman Heath seemed to be non-plussed by the interruption to the meeting.

When the group returned, there was no further discussion, but the damage had been done. No more Superman in town government for me. AGHAST!!

I guess at that point, Tom Torno could have asked for a $20 million dollar cell phone stipend and it would have been okay with me. There was no more Budget Committee. There were the "secret society" and the few who were above the rumors and secret discussions and remained in their seats. Two totally separate groups. The ones I still had respect for, and the ones I no longer do.

There have been a lot of discussions regarding people who volunteer for the town, not getting paid to put in hours of their own time for the greater good of the Town of Lebanon, but not all those who volunteer feel the need to feed into the drama. And what about the residents? The residents sitting in disbelief that they had voted in a group of people and yet, are denied a voice. Our time at the Public Hearings listening to the "secret society" telling us how they are different and worthy of our vote, our time in heading to the polls to vote, all our volunteer hours were apparently not worth a minute's thought. The time several residents take to sit, listen, watch, and try and help figure out why the finances of Lebanon are spent the way they are, we mean nothing to them. For they are the Budget Committee, and we.......well....we are not.

I do have to say that Road Commissioner Torno did a good job of presenting his budget. Sure, he leaves a few questions in my mind, but then again, I'm not allowed to ask them. I'm only a resident.

While I sat listening to Tom answer questions regarding how many more years were left on the Town's backhoe, how much money it cost the town to operate and maintain the traffic lights at the corner of Depot Road and Rt. 202, how motor grease purchases could be listed under "office supplies", and how many times the Champion Street sign has been stolen in the last year, it all seemed so irrelevant. What difference do those things make when your personal super hero has turned out to be as scared of the truth as many of the others?

Questions regarding why the Town is paying to repave people's driveways were met with Selectman Thompson revealing that the practice is completely illegal, but "that's the way we've always done it in Lebanon", didn't even have me batting an eye.

Maybe I just need to accept that there is no one. Not one person, in our town government who I can count on 100% to tell it like it is.

There was a glimmer of hope when Committee member, and newly voted in Committee Chair, Jeri Brasko began sounding like a TRUE champion by asking the hard questions regarding the town's use of independent contractors at $60 an hour, and what the savings would be if the town operated a small fleet of trucks for work like cold patching, ditch digging, and picking up gravel, but when she began to question the practices of the Road Commissioner in his monitoring of independent contractors, Selectman Thompson gave her "the warning", telling her she needed to end that line of questioning. I guess even in the Budget Committee there are places you just don't go. Trying to figure out how to better budget taxpayer dollars is a very taboo subject these days.

I wish I could tell you that there were members who knew right away that the $28,800 of "voted savings spent" were the same $28,800 that Selectmen Heath and Nadeau gifted to the young Road Commissioner in the little "out of the back pocket" motion that had so many residents angry when it was the first order of business conducted by newly elected Selectman Paul Nadeau, but while another resident and I discussed it on the sidelines, the Budget Committee members took a 20 minute question and answer session trying to figure out where that money came from. Here's the answer. The Town voters had been convinced to fund a brand new backhoe for the Road Crew by being presented with the figure of $28,000 in savings to the Road Budget which, we were told, would go back into the General Fund at the end of the year. However, only a few weeks prior to the end of the fiscal year 2014-15, the team of Heath and Nadeau blind sided Selectman Thompson and the duo voted to give that $28,800 in promised "savings" to the Road Commissioner for his use. Torno then used the "savings" to pave less than a half a mile of Center Road. But it doesn't end there. The project was over budget, costing a whopping $37,000 and change, but no one even questioned WHO gave the authority to spend the additional money, or where that money was drawn from. Not even one Budget Committee member questioned that.

And of course, I can't. I'm not allowed, according to Mr. Gilpatrick.

By 9 pm the meeting was winding down.

I waited.

I waited for the motion to be made for the meeting to be adjourned.

And then I asked if residents were allowed to speak yet?

No one answered me, so I figured "No Comment" was better than a denial of my rights.

So I spoke.

I looked my fallen town government super hero in the face, noticing that the bright blazing yellow name looked just a little more faded and unimpressive than it usually does, and I told him just what I thought of him.

I won't say it here, as with all the crazy law suit threats that happen whenever a Lebanon resident speaks their minds, well........the word I used is not a nice one. Not at all nasty, or foul mouthed, but fitting for the circumstances, I assure you.

How can you call Selectman Heath nasty foul mouthed names for not speaking publicly, or for doing things behind the scenes when he is an elected official of Lebanon and then coerce others into joining you in a little "secret society" of your own?

How can you tell the Board of Selectmen that they have no right to silence you, and then use your elected position to silence me?

How can you tell me that you will stand up and say whatever it is you have to say, and not be afraid of others opinions, and then walk out of the Town Office doors with your little following to have "secret conversations"?

There are people in this town who have begged me to give up on Lebanon Town Government. Walk away. Stop trying to change things for the better.

Every once in a while, I begin to think they are right.

"This is the way it's always been done in Lebanon"

I truly thought there were people out there like me, who want to see the truth be told and have an end to "secret missions". A town where "secret meetings" containing statements passed on regarding "the truth of what's happening in this town" which are garnered from "secret private messages" from people with no name, are laughed about, until such time as they can be proven or disproven.

So I'd like to challenge Mr. Gilpatrick to do what he calls on others to do. Why not show us how much "gut" you really have, Chris Gilpatrick. Why not tell the residents what's "really going on in this town". Because I, for one, as a resident, would like to know. Finally. Once and for all. What the HECK is going on in this town???

No Guts, No Glory.

AGHAST!!!