Editor,

On June 13, Standish voters will be asked to pass a referendum, Question 1, to authorize the Town Council to purchase for $325,000 property located at Moody Road and Route 35. They intend to construct a community building, currently estimated to cost an additional $3 million without a pool.

The council has paid the current owner $20,000 in earnest money. If the referendum passes and the Council buys the land for $325,000, the owner will receive more than 50 percent in profit on its investment over a year’s time. This is over the same time period that the state said the property values in Standish rose 5 percent. Check your valuation in October. It will have been increased by 5 percent.

The council put up the $20,000 without the benefit of an appraisal or tests of the soils for abnormal conditions such as ledge or environmental conditions. The house and barn will have to be removed. The timber on the lot has been stripped.

How can this 8-acre piece of land, a quarter of a mile away from the town hall be worth three times the value placed on the Boulter’s 10-acre piece which abuts the town hall property? Normally, abutting property is worth up to 50 percent more to an abutter. You tell me how these numbers add up.

In this process, not only have the Boulters been insulted, but the taxpayers of the town are being insulted by being asked to authorize the purchase of property that has neither been appraised nor tested.

So if these numbers concern you, or if you question the need for a structure that will essentially duplicate current facilities, the time to vote No is on June 13. I intend to.

Louis Stack

Standish

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