I receive a lot of questions from residents, either in person, by email, and occasionally even a postal letter. When time permits I will make an effort to share these questions (which I may paraphrase) I've received, together with my response:
Q: Why hasn't restoration work begun on the cemeteries, as authorized by Town Meeting in May?
A: Good question. If you decided your house needed to be painted in May, chances are you would have it all painted by now. Unfortunately government isn't as efficient as private homeowners can be. The town needs to prepare a request for proposal (RFP) that complies with public procurement laws to solicit interest from suppliers. The nature of the work required on the cemeteries is such that there are not many contractors that can do all the work so we want to be able to consider contractors that can do only pieces of the project. For such a relatively small project, that makes the RFP more complicated.
That still shouldn't take 5 months though, should it? A reasonable question. The sticking point is that this is not the only project on the list. At this time the town is pursuing a number of substantial facilities-related projects that draw on the a limited supply of town staff and volunteer time. These projects include Field School construction, completing renovations at the Brook School Apartments, the Josiah Smith Tavern/Old Library project, the Old Library exterior renovations, and the Warren Avenue housing project. In addition, the growing urgency of the Minuteman School renovation and governance issues, the Case Estates negotiations, and even the Weston300 celebrations have put higher than usual demands on town staff including the Permanent Building Committee, Director of Facilities, Department of Public Works and the Town Manager.
The plan for the cemetery work is to have the RFP prepared this winter so we can select a contractor, or contractors, and be ready to begin work as soon as the weather permits in the spring.
Everything that is done by our town government is a priority to someone. With constrained resources we may simply not have the capacity to act on all priorities at once. I think most of us would like to think that what's top priority for us is top priority for everyone else too, but when the necessary staff time is a bottleneck we need to make choices about what gets pursued first. That's what you elect, appoint, and hire your town leaders to do, make decisions for the good of the community, realizing that most of the time, someone is going to be disappointed.
The cemetery work is important and will be done.
[I welcome, and appreciate, your thoughts on this, and on the issue of prioritizing town resources generally. Please comment below, or you can reach Ed Coburn by email at coburn.e@westonmass.org.
