The dog days of bummer

   While Labor Day marks the unofficial end of summer, I have news for everyone - summer is not going away. I have to think that. The sunny, warm days of autumn are what keep me going, keep me from going balmy over the prospect of a cold winter ahead. Damn you, Old Farmer’s Almanac!
    Sunday and Monday last were beauties. Anyone who missed being outside to soak up the warmth really missed out. The town was at its best. The air was free. The lack of hubbub was welcoming. For the few who bemoaned the end of summer, more actually said the best days were yet to come. And they are. We all have to think that.
    Perhaps that can be said of Wareham and its politics, as well. Or, at least, I would like to think so.
    Right now the town is in an awful mess. Alas, it is something we brought on ourselves. Or at least some of us did. As a municipality we’ve spent ourselves almost to extinction. Long gone is the time to pay the piper for our spending sins. But the problems remain and must be dealt with.
    I spent Tuesday mid-day parked at Swifts Neck. I’ve discovered it’s a quick fix and a lot closer than Little Harbor when you need to be buoyed. There was just me and an older couple with their grandson, down from Brockton to check on their home here, enjoying one more outing at the beach.
    The wind had a decided chill in it. The sky was overcast, swirling dark clouds threatening above. A beached and bleached red dinghy sat precariously tipped on a sandbar, marooned by the outgoing tide. A precursor to the evening ahead at the selectmen’s meeting, I wondered? Little did I know.
    By suppertime the sun had broken through. The day was warm, showing promise, as the threat of storm passed. Yes, a hurricane was roaring through Louisiana, but so far we have been spared. Just like the town’s financial situation?
    I have to say, I was one of those silently cheering when selectmen insisted that department heads share in the budget cuts, not just the minions. In a time of financial crisis, everyone must share in the misery and sacrifice.
    Whatever prompted interim TA John Sanguinet to seek to rescind his 6.5 percent cut in department head salaries, I can’t imagine. First, you have to understand I have a number of friends and acquaintances in Town Hall, I was there once myself. But I am happy to be out, thank you. I felt I was there to do a job and serve the community, not to play politics. Foolish me. Luckily, another opportunity opened up and I took it.
    But just as I have friends at Town Hall, I have been appalled at the machinations of former TA Michael Hartman and the rocket rise so many had by his hand. Not only did salaries skyrocket, but benefits as well. I was blown away with news of vacation and sick time given to some of them. Do you realize that at least one was given 40 days of vacation? That’s two months of work. Two months! How can anything get done with so much disruption? Makes you wonder if that person or position was even needed.
    I was also not troubled when selectmen decided to call a halt to whatever the Affordable Housing Partnership was doing. Or not doing, as the case might be. In this town we have so many boards on top of boards, it’s no wonder things get so convoluted, so messed up. One goes in one direction, another somewhere else. And never the two shall meet. Nor shall they ever let the other know what they are doing. Can you say duplication? Can you say no progress?
    I’m not saying that the housing partnership was necessarily wrong. I just wonder whatever prompted a past Board of Selectmen to pass off such a vital responsibility to another board. The housing partnership was not the only advisory committee they established. Actually, they even abolished some. I will never forget a former board’s treatment of volunteers trying to save open space and the town’s natural water resources.
    A former board also promoted more and more alcohol pouring licenses in town. I know what they were after. They wanted to protect the development interests of their friends at A. D. Makepeace. That’s all well and good, but with all those licenses you would only need to fall out of bed and pass through your front door to find a place that could/would sell you a drink. Wouldn’t it have been wonderful to be known as the drinking capital of Massachusetts? But then we are also a community with more than enough used car licenses to serve Wareham and a bevy of neighboring towns, plus numerous places to eat pizza and places to buy coffee and doughnuts. Now that’s progress for you.
    So, like the sun that came out Tuesday afternoon after a dark, gloomy day that seemed to predict the cold harsh reality of a winter to come, perhaps selectmen can get us out of this morass. Maybe they’ll make the hard decisions, however unpopular they might be, and get things on track toward a brighter tomorrow.