Letter: At the FTM, send a strong message to the council

Posted 5/20/22

To the editor:

As neighbor of the monastery, I am very concerned about giving the town council the ability to demolish this building given the unnecessary and potentially devastating risks that …

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Letter: At the FTM, send a strong message to the council

Posted

To the editor:

As neighbor of the monastery, I am very concerned about giving the town council the ability to demolish this building given the unnecessary and potentially devastating risks that come with disturbing an asbestos-laden structure. There are options already presented by the council’s consultants to the council-appointed “25 Watson Committee” that can accomplish every one of the goals that supported the purchase of the monastery in last year’s Financial Town Meeting. 

Sadly, the Committee has been totally tone-deaf about the opinions of the three representatives from the community and summarily ignored the strong majority opinion of hundreds of Barrington neighbors who participated in a recent poll. 

As a Barrington neighbor, I am appalled by how the current council has been manipulating this process since the 2021 FTM. To get approval of the $3.2 million transaction they waved the “preserve the monastery” flag. Less than a year later, they want to remove this obstacle so they can carry out a likely “grandiose” plan that the council and its consultants have for this quiet residential part of town.

I hope that on May 25, at the next FTM, the community sends a strong message to an administration that pretends to hear but does not listen, reneges on their “preserve the monastery” promise, and unnecessarily risks the well-being of our neighborhoods with asbestos.

Cesar Hernandez

Barrington

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