Editorial
By Elizabeth Prata

Thou shalt not covet your neighbor's house
Pursuing Pennell at all costs. At your cost

The Gray Town Council decided to move forward with litigation to obtain Pennell Institute, an historic building in the center of Gray. Over the course of the two-year process, this discussion has devolved into an abuse of the highest order. Let me count the ways.

Illegal action at Executive Session

The Council held an Executive Session to discuss the Attorney General's decision which stated Pennell is still part of the Trust and that Gray is not entitled to it separate from the other trust elements. There are only a few cases where a public body may exclude the public from their deliberations, and in no case is the body allowed to take action in session, away from public view. They must come out of the private session and vote in public.
As the private session was about to begin, I asked Council Chair Pam Wilkinson if there was to be action after the closed session. Ms. Wilkinson said, "No."

Then they took action. The five Councilors decided to draft a letter to the AG and ask for a reconsideration from the opinion. They decided to move forward with a suit to Superior Court if the answer was no.

Trust manipulation
The Council was asked by the SAD Board to share the costs of heating the building. The Council thought this was an outrageous request, since Gray already shares costs in heating and fueling SAD buildings through their share of the SAD budget.

There is a second Pennell trust that Gray alone manages. It has about $36,000 in it according to Ms. Wilkinson. Henry Pennell set it up for "fuel and for teachers' salaries," she said. The Monument asked, "Why hasn't the trust been used?" Ms. Wilkinson's response was, "I don't know." Then after a silence, "Because it was overlooked."

Do as I say, not as I do

The Gray Council is proud of the work that was done on the Comprehensive Plan update, completed by citizens and Council through a two-year process. Ever since the Plan was finished, the Council answers citizens who ask why their area, road, or property needs to be re-zoned, "Because it's in the Comprehensive Plan." That's the answer to everything and they use it so constantly that the response is now their mantra.

Except…in pursuing the Pennell building, the Council led by Ms. Wilkinson has violated the Comprehensive Plan at every turn. Here are some examples:

Chapter 1 - Vision for Gray; pg. 1-7 E(e2,e3,e6), pg. 1-8 "Issues and Implications," pg. 1-9 G(g1,g2,g3), pg. 1-10 Issues and implications."
Chapter 2 - Implementation; pg. 2-6 items 8 & 9, pg. 2-12 E(e2,e3,e5,e6). Pg. 1-13 'recommended actions' 4,5,6,7.

Chapter 5 - Resources pg. 5-35, last paragraph

Chapter 7 - Recreation; pg. 7-12 last 2 paragraphs, pg. 7-19 'implications for future' paragraph 2.

Chapter -8 Municipal facilities; pg. 8-1 section 2 bullet 2, pg. 8-2 through 4 section 3 all, pg. 8-24 & 25 section 12 all.

Cagey and secretive

My favorite one is page 1-8 "Issues and Implications," where the Plan says, "The town should pursue a logical and comprehensive approach to capital planning facilities planning that evaluates the needs across departments and allow for improvements to be integrated where appropriate and phased in over a period of time…Capital improvements should be based not only on which alternative will serve the immediate needs of the community, but also provide the town with the opportunity to upgrade those facilities, if appropriate, to a service level beyond foreseeable planning horizon of this comprehensive plan."

Remember it is not one building but two that they Council is aggressively intent on grabbing. The Pennell Lab comes with the package. That is another building for which they have not only declined to offer a use-plan but have been scrupulously silent about its very inclusion in the total package. My guess is that's because they plan to raze it.

Twice Ms. Wilkinson has been asked to release the work done by the Manager and Vice Chair which evaluated the capital costs of an expanded town office. Twice she refused to make the findings public.

Twice Ms. Wilkinson has been asked a simple question: What do you foresee using Pennell for? And twice she has refused to offer a specific answer. One of them is in this week's Q&A article. Read it for yourself and see if you can make sense of it.

Trust us, we're your government

In 2002 the Manager and Council said that they needed $170,000 for the Post office to settle immediate ADA and space needs issues, but they never make good on them. The Council says, now, that buying the Post office was just "to preserve options" but at the time they said it was for an expanded Town Office and even spent $4,500 on an architectural rendering to show how the completed space would look. This is one expensive piece of backpedaling.

Forgetting the big picture:
Council serves the public, not their own interests

A small minority is working hard at hysterically fomenting the fallacy, a la Henny Penny the chicken, that 'the building is falling, the building is falling.' This is laughable, especially since both tenants were/are much less vocal about the building's rehabilitative state while they were/are happily occupying the building for free. The building is on a downward spiral but not one that is unrecoverable, or the Council itself wouldn't be so hugely interested in obtaining it.

It matters not a whit to me how many buildings the Town decides to own, construct, or spend money on, as long as the process for reaching the decision was open, respectful, and consistent with currently adopted procedures.

Why?

The Council has gone to such extraordinary lengths; filing two lawsuits, intimating that the SAD mismanaged the Pennell Trust, ignoring their own portion of the Pennell Trust, violating the Executive Session law, and abusing your intelligence and patience.

I am not against Pennell. It might very well be a great idea for an arts organization to convert it to a theatre, to create a nice commodious town office for the employees, or provide expanded space for a self-reliant Historical Society. It might be nice to pass on the building, and just say no for once. These and others are options that haven't been given the courtesy of discussion.

What I am against is a Council that abuses the system to meet their own wants by telling its citizens to 'do as I say, not as I do,' ignores their own bible-thumping Comprehensive Plan, distorts the purpose for spending hard-earned cash on the Post Office, is so energetic in pursuing a burdensome option for which they admit they have no plans, and is secretive in the extreme.

That, I am against.

What you can do:

You can make a difference. Send a letter to the Council asking questions, demanding accountability, requesting an open process. State that you want it for 'Council Correspondence' and it will be entered into the record and publicly read.

Send a letter to The Monument Newspaper asserting your concerns, asking questions, or presenting ideas for solving the 'too many municipal buildings' puzzle.

Speak up at meetings. The microphone is yours, and at the first and third Tuesday of the month during 'non-agenda items,' the public is invited to speak on any topic.

Run for Council. The town would benefit from a diversity of opinion and new attitudes.

Finally, vote. There are three terms up this June, Richard Hall, Lynn Olson, and Pam Wilkinson. Vote them back in if you think they are doing a good job, vote them out if you think they are not.