As a relatively new resident to Plymouth, I have slowly come to the conclusion that the Town’s governing apparatus (and perhaps personnel) are at best inept and perhaps borderline malfeasant. Over the last several years, a clown parade of issues have marched through town, e.g. the lack of preventive maintenance at Founder’s Hall, the Water Street Sewer Project being entered into without any performance/completion bonding, the long closed Pilgrim nuclear plant remaining a nuclear waste “hot” zone in our midst, without any Federal or Holtec activity, and most recently, an apparent decades long failure of Historic Preservation deed restrictions being filed to support town funded projects.
Competent financial stewardship seems not to be core competency of the town government, and the ill-conceived, Pollyannaish statements of current and recent town officials quoted in Mr. Pothier’s recent article regarding the potential financial benefits of SMRs at the Holtec site was frightening. Plymouth may have grown to 70,000 citizens, but the elected officials, “professional” staff and volunteer commission support would seem to be better at pointing fingers, cultivating private grievances, and ‘pushing the stone down the road’, than biting the bullet and making the hard decisions, and accompanying plans, required to start to address/solve the financial and administrative issues before us.
So as not to seem totally unappreciative of some positive elements, I do want to praise Plymouth’s electronic infrastructure which easily provides updates to the citizenry on road closures/construction, pond closures, beach availability, etc. and the on-line access to Town Hall services and data. And I would be remiss in not mentioning the personnel who staff the various Town Hall offices, who are, by far, the nicest and most competent local employees I’ve ever encountered. Hell, I even pay my real estate bills in person; it’s just so enjoyable.
– Chuck Snowdon