Formation of regional police department being considered - Sent...

[Bob The Builder]

No way, once you are part of regionalized services you are at the mercy of people living in other towns. If they say we're buying a new car...your town MUST pay its share EVEN if the people in YOUR town don't think its a good idea. We would be giving up the freedom to make our own decisions.

Giving up your freedom to save a few dollars is a stupid idea.

[Ash Hole]

get out of the way wrote:

<quoted text>
Sure there's no list because you just made it up. What major business is going to set up shop in the woods of Ashby? There is no highway access to get product out and supplies and labor in and limited population in town to support industry. Hell, Fitchburg can't coax business in for the same lack of access, and somehow in your mind the BOS is chasing industry away?

So you mean to tell me that the town fathers all these decades made attemps to help change zoning laws? i don't think so. theres never been any voting like that, ever!

[get out of the way]

Ash Hole wrote:

<quoted text>
So you mean to tell me that the town fathers all these decades made attemps to help change zoning laws? i don't think so. theres never been any voting like that, ever!

Wouldn't the planning board be responsible for zoning? Have any citizens, developers or land owners wanted to change any specific zoning?
If they did the selectmen would offer an opinion-any zoning changes are decided by town meeting-so unless you are claiming the selectmen refused to put a request to change zoning to the town meeting, you have no case.
Zoning changes can also be made by petition, which can not be blocked by selectmen.
Back to my original point, blame them if you want, but to do so is to ignore the simple truth Ashby is geographically not a good location for industry.

[GG Allin]

Why do we need police anyway? All they do is get in the way.

[Rolling Stone]

get out of the way wrote:

<quoted text>
Sure there's no list because you just made it up. What major business is going to set up shop in the woods of Ashby? There is no highway access to get product out and supplies and labor in and limited population in town to support industry. Hell, Fitchburg can't coax business in for the same lack of access, and somehow in your mind the BOS is chasing industry away?

I am not sure where you are from, but Ashby isn't as you make as a backwoods community, void of highways. For one thing, it has a decent road in Route 31 heading into Fitchburg. Also, it has with the Route 119 junction to Route 101, another highway there to get product nearer to Gardner, and Route 2 with ease. A far sight better than trying to go east on Route 2 heading to Boston, from the Concord Rotary.

Furthermore, business could set up shop in Ashby with really no problem, and the costs would be much reasonable than most would think. However, many generations of Town Government in Ashby has hung to this notion that it is better to keep the town a small rural community. That is why, most of the people I went to school with from Ashby, A LARGE PERCENTAGE (well over 95%), moved out for one reason, that one cannot afford to live there, as there is really no jobs there for them to have.

I lived in Maine for 11 years, and I have seen small towns (much like Ashby), embrace more business that up to 10-15 years ago they turned the otherway on. Why is this? This current economic downturn finally made some of those communities smell the coffee, that "the old days are OVER."

Unfortunately when you have governance like Lillian Whitney, who I remember her living up the road from my Aunt, wasn't really the nicest person I ever met, and personally her views of what Ashby should be are about as archaic as the history of the town. Lillian needs to understand that the days of the Lyman/Marston families keeping the town afloat, and the small town ways are LONG SINCE OVER, and running things on a shoestring, just won't cut it.

However to expect Townsend to bail out Ashby, because folks like Lillian and her ilk, wish to operate Ashby on what amounts to being nothing more than a mayonnaise jar of loose change, is NOT TOWNSEND'S PROBLEM.

[Rolling Stone]

Bob The Builder wrote:

No way, once you are part of regionalized services you are at the mercy of people living in other towns. If they say we're buying a new car...your town MUST pay its share EVEN if the people in YOUR town don't think its a good idea. We would be giving up the freedom to make our own decisions.
Giving up your freedom to save a few dollars is a stupid idea.

Gee Bob, when you say "Giving up your freedom to save a few dollars is a stupid idea" are you actually tell us the fact that you are the stove calling the kettle black?

Let review the case history on you. Memory serves me right you wrote MANY posts against committee looking at the building of a new police station, and also were making the same references over the Firetruck issue.

Unless you got struck by lightning, or as a builder you met up with a wall to your head without the comfort of a hard hat, your last post is quite contradicting.

Maybe if you had been more sensible about this issue, than writing a bunch of posts that helped fuel the ire of many in Ashby, this rather screwball idea of having Townsend bailout Ashby with Townsend taxpayers money going into a regional compact would have been nothing more than a figment of Lillian Whitney's warped sense of reality.

If you finally seen the light, please change your nickname to "Johnny Come Lately" Or otherwise face the criticism on this.

It's folks like you and the anti-goverment/tax stance that got Ashby where it is today. Just don't expect any one to feel sorry for you all, especially those from Townsend!

[O-So-Lo-Mio]

still blabbering wrote:

<quoted text>think about this: a largely uncontrolled huge system where it is impossible to police the police, authority over huge areas and power to do anything, think about that! sound like the SS, you must be a republican, only repugs actually want larger more controlling government

Take a look at the batting average in this country...regionalized education/police/fire/public works.....49 Cities and towns with their own systems..........1 guess who the 1 is? You got it...good old Massachusetts.

[ashby resident]

Ashby Man wrote:

<quoted text>
ethics violation? this is the only town in the country that rents space for a post office. ashby can't even get that right. feds are building palaces for P Os and a selectman steps down to turn a 300 yo inn into a post office. and then the historical society doesn't utter a word

The town of Ashby doesn't rent anything from the post office that's an arrangement between the federal government and the post office. Get your facts straight please.

[Ashby Man]

ok, your right. the point is someone in town palm is getting greased and the town sat there and let it happen. town government, from the very bottom right to the top condoned this greasing. individuals can reap from a town's growing needs but the town can't. i'm i more on track now?

[ashby resident]

Ashby Man wrote:

ok, your right. the point is someone in town palm is getting greased and the town sat there and let it happen. town government, from the very bottom right to the top condoned this greasing. individuals can reap from a town's growing needs but the town can't. i'm i more on track now?

Someone did report that to the Ethics commission and the situation was found not in violation. If the ethics commission said it was ok then what did you expect town government to do.