Amanda Loud: Scribner Trust has been depleted by stipends, fees & overspending

To The Daily Sun,

Dear Ashland taxpayers:

I feel obligated to respond to Tom Peters’ letter. I am a Christian, and I take my faith very seriously.

I do not lie. The videos I have uploaded have not been edited. On two different occasions, the video recording did stop, and I restarted it. You can tell on those meetings that only a few seconds were lost each time, and the board was reading through documents — not talking — at the time the recordings paused. All videos are posted on YouTube. Just search for “Scribner Meeting.”

I do not edit the minutes. The trustees were not reviewing meeting minutes when I joined the board in May, so I began presenting minutes to the board for review at our meetings. This is something you can view in the videos. Rick Paré, the secretary, then did institute this meeting practice, so I stopped. I do not edit the minutes. When I did not find the amended minutes at the Town Hall, I hand wrote the amendments (as agreed upon at the last meeting), initialed these amendments, then brought up this topic at the next Scribner meeting. You can hear all this in the video of March 2.

I love and am concerned for my neighbors. The trust has been depleted through the decades’ long practice of taking stipends, the fees incurred on the investments, and overspending. When this trust depletes, the Ashland tax bill will increase. The Scribner Trustee/Trustee of the Trust Funds Board is aware of this depletion and has even tried to charge the library, the current tenant in the Scribner building, a “user’s fee” of $10,000 peryear. This fee would be passed directly upon the taxpayers, as the library earns no income. Presumably 10 percent of this fee would go directly into the pockets of the four other trustees as their stipends.

I have gone behind no one’s back. I copy (cc) the town administrator, and often the BOS, on all emails to my fellow trustees. The information I share with my friends and neighbors is all public information I found in town reports.

I urge everyone to go to the polls and vote on Tuesday.

Amanda Loud

Ashland