To the Editor:

It is time for the fiasco of the Westerlo Town Board’s big building project to stop. The town board is wasting our time with this boondoggle, and preparing to waste a lot of our tax money without even letting us have a say.

Councilman [William] Bichteman has decided he wants this big project, already rejected by taxpayers and residents, to happen the way he wants, when he wants, and for the large sum of money he wants us to provide.

The first time around, this plan was hatched in private, then crudely presented to the townspeople, who then made a successful petition to have a permissive referendum, then soundly defeated this measure.

Now, we have nominally public meetings of a “Building Committee,” which is just the town board, whose members now tell us they know better than the people they represent and have no need for people to join this committee, and that it’s OK with them that we can’t hear what they say in these meetings or ask any questions or make any comments.

When we are permitted to speak, at regular monthly town board meetings, we get either no response (cold stares) or lectures about how the Town-Board-as-Building-Committee knows best, is doing just what it should, and all will be fine.

Well, it won’t. A project that is not the only way to do what’s actually needed, and that will cost several times the town’s entire annual budget, was already rejected, so now Mr. Bichteman is leading the town board to spin this same project as the right thing anyway, and the town attorney has provided the town board “creative financing” methods that will prevent another permissive referendum, so this project can be forced on the taxpayers.

When pressed, Mr. Bichteman rejects out of hand the possibility of more practical and less expensive alternatives, and the rest of the town board (aside from Ms. [Amie] Burnside, who has gotten very little useful response to her polite questions), along with the town supervisor, basically sit there silently while Mr. Bichteman pursues his One True Plan. How is this responsible representation of the people?

We, the townspeople, go to meeting after meeting trying to get Mr. Bichteman to stop spending time and money pursing this lavish, unnecessary project, and to stop shutting out the public he’s too quick to say doesn’t know what it’s taking about.

Meanwhile, bits of interesting information leak out: Delaware Engineering has already been paid $37,000 (or maybe $34,000; they weren’t sure). No one at the head table could come up with even a rough idea of what Delaware Engineering will charge for the “design phase” during which they’ll find out what all this will really cost (both Delaware Engineering and Mr. Bichteman have stated that the actual cost may be far different from, including higher than, the $2.75 million already rejected in the permissive referendum), but we may have heard at the recent town board meeting that Delaware Engineering will get a total of over $100,000 before this is done.

We also heard that Delaware Engineering has included a new well to be drilled outside the highway garage, through earth saturated with salt from decades of winter road maintenance, but somehow that will be OK.

The facts here are simple:

There is no urgent need to implement any major building project. The recent repair to the roof works and is guaranteed for three years. The heating plant at the town hall has been repaired.

Delaware Engineering’s plan is more expensive than the taxpayers can or should be asked to afford. For that matter, the amounts Delaware Engineering’s been paid and is looking to be paid are way out of line.

The town’s already in financial “stress,” according to New York State, so the urgent mission of the town board should be to fix the town’s finances, not borrow lots more money and take on a huge project.

The school building we were told was a bargain and ready for use as a town hall (and “community center;” remember that?) when the town bought it is now described by Mr. Bichteman as “seriously deteriorating,” so it may be best for the town to cut its losses and not try to fix what’s now seen as something expensive to fix. That may apply even to the asbestos abatement Mr. Bichteman’s decided must be done, and done now.

On top of all these controversies, or maybe because of them, the town board is completely blocking public participation in discovering and evaluating alternatives for affordable, practical, manageable building efforts, and is looking at financing approaches carefully detailed by the town attorney that will block taxpayers and residents from any attempt to stop an ill-considered project.

So, the time has come for Mr. Bichteman to stop railroading everyone into doing what he insists is the only right thing. Two meetings ago, he said he did not know what should be done, and so depended on Delaware Engineering to determine what to do, but at the last meeting he said he knew more than anyone what should be done.

What Mr. Bichteman is pushing is wrong. He should stop now. I’m sad to see my fellow townspeople rebuffed when they are trying politely to help him make sense out of the mess he is making. This is standard old-school town board procedure, pretending to be open while doing whatever they please, wasting the goodwill of good people and injuring Westerlo.

I call on the town supervisor, on Mr. Bichteman, and on the rest of the town board to do what’s needed now:

Stop paying Delaware Engineering to lead Mr. Bichteman and the town board by the nose to the big project they’re being paid lots of money to plan, design, and supervise.

Stop treating the people of Westerlo as fools and enemies. Open the Building Committee to townspeople other than town board members, and conduct Building Committee meetings that are open and audible to the public. Let the Building Committee look into basic alternatives. Build public support.

Fix the town’s finances and get us out of “stress” before looking to borrow lots of money.

Bonnie Kohl-Laub

Westerlo