Posted by Dennis Herrick on July 22, 2008 at 09:04:23:
Plaistow businessman still miffed after his bid was rejected. What would you do, sign a contract with a office equipment firm out of Portsmouth, Nashua or Manchester to save 10 or 20 dollars or hire someone locally and support the folks right here in town? Just the speedy response to service interruptions would be worth the measley $20 dollars extra. Hell this guy could walk to town hall faster than the folks in Nashua could drive. Listen I applaud the efforts everyone has put into the town report, but where's the real beef, a listing of employee salaries and a list of vendors the town does business with and and how much they get in return for their services. Don't the taxpayers have a right to know who the stakeholders are? And they shouldn't have to make dozens of calls, take out a magnifying glass or find this stuff out on the street. Until this stuff appears in the Town Report, we're never going to know if we live in a "clean" town.
The following was taken from DanvilleDelivery.com's Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) section.
Why post employee, vendor, office holder information?
Who pays taxes and what we spend the money on is what politics is all about. No matter the expenditure, no matter the tax, there are stakeholders. Stakeholders are the people who benefit from the expenditure and the people who pay for it. I believe understanding the stakeholders is an important tool in deciding what expenditure is worth funding.
Posting vendor/employee information helps us understand the people benefiting from expenditures. If the people benefiting from an expenditure also happen to be decision makers or related to decision makers, that information should be a matter of public record and accessible to all. If the head of the budget committee breaks a tie on a vote for spending that benefits his wife, that doesn't mean he acted improperly, but we should all know what happened so we can decide for ourselves.
If committee members are vendors to the town and their family members are employees and/or vendors to the town, that does not mean they used their influence to the benefit of their friends and family. BUT it's something that should be a matter of public record and accessible to all.