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Calming the waters
By Selectman John Rhyno
Wed Aug 06, 2008, 01:00 AM EDT
North Attleborough -Calming the waters
To the Editor:
There are a couple of issues I would like to address regarding the electric department and the building department of North Attleborough.
The electric department (NAED):
No one, and I want to emphasize no one, on the board of selectmen has ever spoken to me about selling the electric department. In my opinion that would be a big mistake. There is a process that would have to be followed anyway, which is that Representative Town Meeting would have to pass the article to sell it by two-thirds vote taken by ballot at each of two town meetings called in succession. It is absolutely not a decision by the board of selectmen whether or not to sell.
As far as the electric department being owned by the town, not the consumers of electricity: When there was a bond taken by NAED that was allegedly misspent the Inspector General asked who guarantees the bond. The answer is the town – all bonds are required to have Representative Town Meeting approval.
When the last Charter was proposed the management team of NAED and most of their commissioners that are in place now wanted the electric department to go under the town manager. That could never happen if the NAED was a separate entity owned by customers because the town couldn’t then guarantee the bond because it wouldn’t own the asset. The question that was asked by a selectman was “Who owns the electric department?” He didn’t say, “…so we can sell it.”
The average worker at NAED day in and day out does an outstanding job. I want to assure the residents that just because a member of the board of selectmen asked for town counsel’s opinion on who owns the electric department, it does not mean anything more than that.
The building department/building inspector:
I received many, many phone calls from residents wondering what is going to happen at the building department because of the articles in the newspapers and the resignation of the building inspector.
I am not going to enter into a debate on the people that work in that department. There was an investigation done, the results of which are a public document available upon request for a small fee at the North Attleborough Police Facility.
I have asked both The Sun Chronicle and the Free Press to print the copy of the Police Investigation Summary as a public service. Why? Because it is not fair to have the rampant rumors based on uncertainty to be perceived as fact. It’s unfair to all town employees.
I would urge anyone interested to obtain a copy and decide for his or herself what really happened.
By and large, most town employees are very hardworking and are committed to doing the best they can for the town.
We are in the process of hiring a new building inspector who should be on board in September.
I hope this letter helps to clarify the facts on both of these topics.
Thank you very much.
John Rhyno, Chairman
Board of Selectmen
