MOOREcol.01-28-2005     27


Hed :

Well, ready or not --
Change-selectmen's
Race's off & running


By BOB MOORE


This morning a friend covering Washington was telling me how the Bush
White House keeps a tight lid on the news. Even the astute press
corps isn't sure just what's up until the President chooses to speak.

I was about to tell her that . . . . Well, I'll tell you. Until
Manager George King decides to break his long silence, no one here
knows what is a fact and which is a balloon. Nothing firm is on the
books..

King's silence is possible because four members of the Board of
Selectmen sit by and do nothing.

But this week at least three candidates deadly serious on a change
launched their campaigns for selectman - Dennis Giombetti, Ellen
LaRose and John Stasik.

Two had heavily-attended and well-funded campaign parties this week,
and the fight is on. Four others are also running for
election. Except for Harold Wolfe, known as a persistent critic of
over-spending, the rest are one-issue candidates : Jim Rizoli, and
Jeff Buck, noted for their anti-Brazilian stands and Dennis Paulsen,
who has one complaint with the administration.

With seven persons in the race, nothing is certain. The three
front-runners have the money and the organizations and should show
well. But any one of the three minor candidates might qualify on
April 5.

Not to be taken seriously is the dope story in last week's Tab that
Giombetti and Stasik are backed by the ones supporting incumbents
Chris Ross and Esther Hopkins who decided not to run.

Neither Giombetti nor Stasik, nor active Town Meeting member LaRose
are in that class. During the Karen Spilka senatorial campaign,
Giombetti said he would run to unseat Ross and Hopkins. Giombetti is
an active member of the FinCom and a former town official as top aide
to former Rep. Drew Rogers. Ex-Rep John Stasik, a former member of
the Planning Board is in the forefront of changes in town government.

MISSING ENGREDIENTS - King's prolonged silence and frequent delays is
at the heart of the campaign this year.

In August he put forth a $90 million capital budget proposal that
shrank to $86 mil in September with a promise of immediate action in
November and finally an unintegrated grab-bag that had no specifics
in cost and time for construction. It has floated out there as a
maybe balloon with no strings attached.

Right now, the still uninitiated town boards are waiting for
specifics. An eight-member, hurry-up ad hoc committee was named in
late December to try to sift some sense out of the huge proposal. In
late January it met to say hello but as yet has no chairman. Or
suggestions.

This is what I mean when I refer to the indefinite financial position
I say the town is in. In emergency session a week ago, selectmen
agreed with King's choice of Town Accountant Richard G. Howarth Jr. as
acting Chief Financial Officer. Of course in the midst of this
financial muddle, CFO Virginia Cahill resigned, leaving the
arithmetic of a crazy year yet to be figured out.

Gov. Mitt Romney this week asked for legislative action on his $23.5
billion budget. That means? That means that by June 30, if all goes
well, there'll be some certainty about the local aid of one sort or
another. Even then King will be forced to make an educated guess as
to how this will affect his still-unannounced Fiscal Year 2006
budget.

There's more to be said about the selectman's race but that can wait
until Feb. 4 when we'll know if any candidates will drop out. Cross
your fingers; nothing is certain.

__________________________________________
You can reach Bob Moore at edmoore4@aol.com or at 1-508-620-1449. [Let it
ring; he's slow.]


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