Author: To the Editor: Recently I read an article in the Old Colony Memorial concerning the Plymouth Public Library. The article pertained to some doors that were in need of paint and the estimated cost, (we lowly tax payers would need to cough up) only a mere ten thousand dollars. This caught my interest having been a painting contractor at one time, I thought ‘gee’ there must be allot of doors! I continued reading and found that the article was talking about 8 doors! Ten thousand dollars for 8 doors! Eight doors, ten grand, that boiled down to one thousand, two hundred and fifty dollars per door, $1250.00, wow.
I know that with a couple gallons of Rustoleum, for say, $50 from Benny’s, and a quality paint brush, for say another $20 along with two eight hour days of my time, including preparation, I could offer my services for a mere five thousand dollars. Look at all the money I could save the cash strapped tax payers of Plymouth! Id be very happy to do it. But then again we should be asking our selves, don’t we have a DPW complete with tax paid employees already on the payroll for an hourly rate of pay? Hand one of them the brush and paint and BINGO another saving to the tax payer of an additional $4600.00 dollars, total cost for 8 doors, $400.00, the second coat at no extra cost, total saved,$9600.00, again, wow.
I think it is time the town manager should be elected, not appointed, I would run for town manager. Of course I do not have the piece of paper proving a college pedigree, therefore I would never be considered ‘smart’ enough to make the ‘tough’ financial decisions that a town manager obviously makes, like the cost of painting 8 doors, but I would give it an honest try.
I find that the smarter one professes to be, via college degree in a government position, the easier it is to spend other peoples hard earned money. It is almost a certainty that who ever gets this gold plated ‘contract’ will inevitably be related to someone at the Plymouth Town Hall in some way, go figure. I am prepared for the critics who will claim that they want it to be a perfectly executed job, after all, the public will have to look at those doors for quite awhile, they should be visually pleasing to those with a ‘cultured’ eye for such things. In my ‘under educated’ experience, Ive noticed that most people just cruise through doors without paying any attention to them at all.
I suppose we should consider the hypothetical ‘Smiths’ as they approach the doors. Oh my God, look Harold, these doors are not nearly as perfectly painted as the doors of the public restrooms! My God Mildred, your right! This is an affront and an insult to the delicate sensibility’s of all mankind! Let us lodge a strongly worded complaint to the management of this establishment! I suppose that hypothetically could happen, and the town manager is just trying to spare the town the utter embarrassment and scandal of epic proportions that could ensue should it occur. So in that light I guess the town manager is looking out for us after all, making the cost a silly consideration indeed compared to the alternative embarrassment that should be avoided at any cost.
So I, on second thought, apologize for doubting the expertise of the town manager. Sincerely, Town of Plymouth resident and ‘under educated’ tax payer, Mark Shean-written 3-8-2010 www.mafirearmsafety.com
Posted in Blog
Reading this post made me think of a conversation my 12 yr old daughter and I were having last week. We talked about costs and debts by the state of Ma and from our federal government. She feels that nothing costs as much as we are told and that the extra money must be going somewhere. Well if a 12 year old girl can see that we are being charged taxes that should be paying for a hell of a lot more then they are- well why cant the people. Could you imagine how much lost money we would find if we did a little investigation on the use of our tax dollars and where the money really goes. In your example of just the town of Plymouth there was well over $5000 that did not need to be spent. If every town in plymouth county did the same thing once a year- how much money is that? Now look at the entire state of Ma…lots and lots of money. Ok now think that if every town in the USA had $5000 a year needlessly spent (yes I know it is way more then that but using easy numbers for those who wish to figure it out) that is a lot of money. I honestly dont know how many towns in the USA but even if every state used $5000 more then they should that would be $250,000. I could do an aweful lot with that!!!! So in short Mark you have shown that the likely hood of Millions of dollars being needlessly spent is not only very realistic but it is exactly what is putting our states and our country in debt. But then again I didnt even go to college so what do I know. Always a pleasure, Nelly
I’m a firm believer in Public Libraries to provide everyone the opportunity for knowledge. BUT let,s be reasonable here. Actually the solution would be to have a couple of painters volunteer to do it. A problem there would be the “Government wouldn’t let you”. NOTE, Your probably right about that Ed, the government is all about wasting our tax dollars. As of yet I still have not heard what the final outcome was on that ‘door job’ to the public, the paper failed to follow up. Thanks for the comment Ed,- MS