LETTER: Vote Sandalls and Boshart

The following is a letter to the editor.

Please vote on May 11^th for Bill Sandalls for Selectman and Harvey Boshart for Moderator, based on facts, not personal attacks. Your votes can affect our town policies and public discourse for years to come, for better or worse.

In last Thursday’s Town Crier, Christopher Houston produced a 952 word pile of bile last week attacking Sandalls’ previous public letters and columns over the past year without quoting from any of them.

Sandalls has attended most Selectmen’s Meetings and other municipal gatherings over the past two years, and cited facts and figures in each letter in both the Crier and Weston Patch unlike Mr. Houston, who ignored Sandalls’ service on the Finance, School & WTMAC bodies. Most such groups don’t allow voters’ questions or post timely minutes. (E.g., the Selectmen’s most recent minutes are for 3/25/13, the Con Com’s for 2/19/13, and the Planning Board for 3/19/13.)

Recently, Doug  Gillespie falsely accused Sandalls of stealing yard signs, Nixonian “dirty tricks” and going on a “rampage attacking his neighbors” (4/18/13). Sandalls ignored these libels and has run a positive campaign, including a LWV forum with Gillespie last Thursday, yet Mr. Houston claims Mr. Sandalls can’t work with people while “in … his own letters to the Town Crier, Doug Gillespie has consistently demonstrated the right temperament ...” Who is Houston kidding?

Sandalls is a Vietnam War veteran, Harvard MBA and financial expert, whereas Gillespie is a sheep shearing farmer running from his 15 year record with no vision for the future. Last Thursday, Gillespie rationalized Weston’s average property taxes of $17,000 (MA’s highest) and town debt nearing $27,000 per household, saying people liked “the current level of services” without considering whether these can be provided more efficiently via benchmarking and studying peer towns’ best practices. And how is Weston “well run” with the JS Tavern neglected for 25+ years and the Old Library for 15+, while the Case Estate purchase has languished for 7 and the Hobbs Brook Dam repairs for 3? It isn’t!

Tom Crane’s campaign for Moderator has also lacked substance and veracity. He wants to be judged as WTMAC Chair, but violated the MA Open Meeting Law, censored members’ emails, suppressed proposed agenda items, and delayed the approval and posting of meeting minutes for months, like an inattentive control freak ignoring the 1^st Amendment.

Crane has not proposed anything effective to increase attendance at Town Meetings, which was just 3.1% of registered voters last year with speakers given only 5 minutes to talk, and he objects to weekend meetings, which Lincoln utilizes. He called observers of other towns’ meetings “voyeurs”, then denied it, and said WTMAC rejected online voting, when it didn’t. He claims to be a Medicare expert, but his bio on Mintz Levin’s website shows he mostly defends executives from fraud charges rather than helping senior citizens pay their medical bills. Crane also bragged he “let all voices be heard”, but forced me off WTMAC last June without cause. Do we want a bully as Moderator who isn’t fully trustworthy?

By contrast, Harvey Boshart is open to new ideas, like weekend meetings and on-line voting, to increase voter participation. Whereas Crane takes credit for other people’s ideas, says “I” too much and is “allergic to change”, Boshart is team, task and result oriented, with an MBA, military and financial experience, and a poise that Crane clearly lacks.

Please vote for Sandalls for Selectman and Boshart for Moderator May 11^th to get Weston back on track for the future and help voters make more informed choices about town spending, debt and civic regulations.

William C. Crum                                                                                                                                                                                        33 Hobbs Brook Road