POLAND – The Poland School Committee has decided to buy a $39,000 high school generator switch less than a week after residents voted down the same purchase.
The move has upset some residents and at least one member of the Board of Selectmen.
“My problem is disenfranchising the citizens. It just doesn’t look good,” said Selectwoman Wendy Sanborn.
A generator switch allows workers to hook up and run an electrical generator in a building. The switch was originally included in the six-year-old Poland Regional High School building design, but was dropped in later plans.
The School Committee began talking about the switch last spring after a short power outage caused hundreds of dollars in food to spoil. Like the refrigerators, the school’s heating system relies on electricity, and committee members suddenly worried that an extended winter power failure – one that lasts more than three or four days – could cause the pipes to freeze and burst.
“What’s the insurance policy? What do we need to do now to prevent a big oops later?” said School Committee Chairman Ike Levine.
The committee looked into buying the generator switch but couldn’t purchase it by the end of the last fiscal year. It put the issue on the agenda for this year’s town meeting.
On April 30, residents discussed the purchase. Levine said people liked the idea, but ultimately voted against it to keep taxes down.
Four days later, the School Committee voted to buy the switch anyway. Members decided to pay for it with surplus from this year’s school budget.
Sanborn said she began receiving phone calls from angry constituents right after that televised meeting.
“They were up in arms because they remembered at the town meeting it was voted down,” she said.
Sanborn said she likes the idea of buying a generator switch, but she doesn’t like seeing the School Committee go against voters’ wishes.
“It’s hard enough to get people to town meeting as it is,” she said. “When they don’t feel their vote counts it makes it even harder.”
Levine said the School Committee didn’t see any problem when it voted to make the purchase. Residents liked the switch at town meeting, he said. What they didn’t like were higher taxes. The committee simply found a way to make the purchase without asking for more money, he said.
Town Manager Richard Chick said any unspent surplus would have to go to the school system’s reserve accounts, which are untouchable without voter approval.
Both the School Committee and the selectmen have used surpluses to make small purchases in the past, according to Chick. But most of those purchases were not first rejected by voters.
The School Committee’s decision was legal, Chick said, but he would have liked voters to have the final say.
“It would have been better to resubmit it,” he said.
No money has yet been spent on the generator switch and Levine said the committee authorized the purchase only in the event there was enough surplus money to pay for it. Final surplus numbers won’t be known for weeks.
Now that residents are angry at the School Committee’s decision, Levine said the purchase may be canceled altogether. He has asked residents to voice their opinions at the School Committee’s next meeting, which will be held at 7 p.m. May 18 at the high school.
“We’re just trying to do the right thing,” he said. “We thought we did.”
Comments are no longer available on this story