City Place ‘loan’ sounds suspicious

The article, “City to borrow from Semprebon bequest to fund City Place” (Nov. 6) only confirmed my worst fears, that this City Council will stop at nothing to see this building built. In the article the city takes (not “borrows”) $600,000 of the Semprebon Fund and buys contaminated private property, all hinging on the promise that some mystery money will appear from the state to clean it up. It will THEN be sold to DEW Construction, neat as a pin. It was reported that “city taxpayers would be held harmless in the long run.” Right. Seems we’ve heard this tune before — remember the song that was sung when voters approved “up to $4 million” for a new public safety building? Seems that mystery federal money was in the offing for defraying that project too — and tah-dah! It didn’t materialize. Harmless in the long run, indeed. Seems like the old switcheroo. And what taxpayer-funded state government doesn’t like to hear that they’re funding someone’s private building project?

At least we got to vote on that one, so we have no one to blame but ourselves.

Christopher Maloney

Barre