While the Presidential election is in the forefront of most of our minds as we head into November, it’s important to note that there are many other local issues that won’t be wrapped up neatly on Election Day.
Just one such issues is in Athol, where the town is holding a public hearing on Nov. 14 at the Senior Center at 6:30 p.m. to discuss regional dispatch and a proposed merger with the city of Gardner.
It’s amazing, as a taxpayer, to note that not one public hearing has been held to date on this proposal, while the neighboring town of Orange held four public hearings regarding construction of a new gas station!
The Athol proposal will see police and fire dispatching leave the town and go to the city of Gardner, 15 miles away. These aren’t contiguous municipalities, and rather than using Athol’s current police station as a dispatch hub, the town manager never even explored making the town’s dispatch center into a regional center. Instead, he looked only at Gardner.
The town chose the Athol Police Station’s location downtown for a reason. Most of the population lives downtown. It has two separate dispatch stations and is designed to dispatch for more than just the Athol Police Department.
The taxpayers have no idea that if this plan isn’t stopped, the station will “go dark,” meaning no one inside the station there to handle walk-ins needing help, no one in the station to monitor prisoners and a huge town service gone for good.
With Athol seeing a huge boost in economic development right now, it is the absolute worst time to start cutting services. The police, firefighters and dispatch unions are all opposed to the regionalization. The Town Manager wants it and the Selectmen had no idea what they were getting into.
It’s time to opt out of this regionalization plan and explore Athol’s options to increase services and start being honest and open with the taxpayers, who have had no part in this disastrous undertaking.
Citizens need to come out on Nov. 14, ask the hard questions and demand to see the numbers and savings that are being claimed.
If the men and women who put their lives on the line every day for the citizens of Athol say this is a bad idea, it’s time for the town manager to start listening.
Sarah Gambre
Athol