I from time to time check on this website, in fact I’ve been following it from the beginning as I was on the board of selectmen when it started. For a very long time I have kept my opinions to myself but now have decided not to after seeing how “hidden” was treated. It amazes me that such a simple and logical request gets ignored. I see “hidden’s” point about this website. I believe the government section should ONLY contain a link to the town office’s website. Keep the forum to discuss issues, but in reality all of the comments should be brought to the selectmen’s meetings. As I look under the selectmen link there is synopsis, notes, and summaries for many meetings but none of them are signed. Some of the summaries are very inaccurate, I don’t even know who I should have a beef with about the inaccuracies. The town does a great job with producing minutes from the meeting and insuring accuracy by having the selectmen review and amend any minutes before voting to accept them before they are made public.
I don’t even know why I am putting in all this effort now. I believe this website is on its last legs. Today, a snowy Saturday you had 4 hits....4! If I was a sponsor I would have better exposure placing my advertisements in the break room at Hammon Tractor. If you take away the “sponsors” who started this newsletter/website you would only have two, Hannibal’s and Quarry House Antiques. I believe the owner of Quarry House cost the town thousands of dollars in legal fees so I know she has an axe to grind with the town.
Since it’s late and I’m rambling I have a couple of questions for Nick. While I was on the board of selectmen you kept referring to these “hidden agendas” …. What the @#$%^& are you talking about? Please share with everyone what these agendas are. You also mention “retaliations”, who was retaliated against and by whom? That is a serious allegation and if true should be investigated. Finally who is the president and members of the Sennebec Lake Association?
I got a lot more to say but I’ll leave it for another time.

Dear Brian, I welcome your comments, as I welcome the comments of anyone who cares to voice an opinion.

I am sorry, but I will not respond to your allegations. I do not wish to open old disputes. But I will call your attention to the fact that there have not been any "political" arguments since last June's elections, That may tell you something.

Neither Mark, nor Charlotte were in the group that started the newsletter/website, and in fact, have nothing to do with it. Your remarks about Quarry were inappropriate, but I will not remove them. I believe in free speech.

The goal of this website was and is to bring the residents of Union together and become a source of information. That we achieved, and we are proud of it. For the past few months, I have been running the website by myself, trying to find and post news and items that I believe they may be of value to my neighbors. I will continue to do so.

I am sorry that you feel so negative about our efforts. I respect you and your wife very much, and I would be extremely happy to have either or both of you contributing. As a teacher, you must have many stories to share with us. As a young couple, you would be a fresh voice in parenting.

I made this too long and I did not intend to. I would like to offer my hand in friendship, since I do believe that you care about Union, as do I.

Nick Santorineos

Ok Nick,
1st point
The only allegations I make are of the bias and inaccuracies of the unsigned reports of the selectmen’s meetings, THAT ARE STILL POSTED on YOUR WEBSITE how can you not respond?? Don’t you stand by what is reported in your own website? Aren’t you going to take responsibility for any misinformation on YOUR website? What old disputes are you referring to? I am only concerned about the truth being told. Someone who does not respond is also perceived as guilty or you pleading the 5th?
2nd point
“But I will call your attention to the fact that there have not been any "political" arguments since last June's elections, That may tell you something.
Yes, Nick it tells me you have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. Let’s review some of the hot topics since June. 1. MMA and the insurance issue on the common. 2. The lack of action to appoint Barry Norris as Fire Chief 3. Barrett Hill Rd. issue, by the way which has not been resolved. 4. The FALSE reporting from this website that the caterer at Union Fair violated conditions of serving alcohol. 5. The TABOR issue. 6. (Not sure this one counts) the accusation, from Al, of Bill Packard micro-managing public works, I’m not sure of the details but from reading the minutes it sounded a little heated.
I can see you are trying to take a dig at me. “Since Bill and John have replaced Brian and Dyane everything is so much better now” I hope no one really believes that.
3rd point
Please go back and read what I posted: “If you take away the “sponsors” who started this newsletter/website you would only have two, Hannibal’s and Quarry House Antiques.”
As I stated Hannibal’s and Quarry House were the only two who were not around in the beginning, well hmmmm I should have inserted the word “remaining” or “left” after the word “two” to make it a little more clear. Regardless, I am very aware who started this website.
4th point
What is inappropriate about my comments about Quarry House? Were they false? For goodness sake the town had to create a separate budget line item just for her lawsuit that I believe went to the Maine Supreme Court, which she ended up losing. I also believe it ended up costing the town somewhere in the area of $10,000. Please correct me if I am wrong about any of that information. Maybe you could do a little investigation on it.
5th point
You mention that you have been running the website by yourself for the past couple of months? I’m not surprised; some people took advantage of you. They used you for their own purposes and once they got it left you holding the bag. That was observation made by someone else, not by me.
6th point
I also applaud your efforts; remember it’s only the “government” portion I have a problem with.
7th point
There is no way I will take your hand in friendship until you take down your paragraph about the Town & Manager. You insulted the entire form of government in this town. You referred to the elected officials as a do-little board of selectmen. You made a personal attack against me referring that I wasn’t dedicated or serious about my position. That is a down right LIE. I was greatly offended by those remarks and still am. I also again demand to know what hidden agendas that the board supposedly had. You also make accusations of retaliations; I also demand to know what you are referring to. If you can’t support those accusations then it bears another reason why that paragraph needs to be removed.

It seems to me that there is no point continuing this debate. All your points are personal opinions, not facts. Just a couple of things. 1. I did not write all the articles posted. They came from people like you. 2. I will not remove anything from the website, because they have been published and they are a matter of record. Removing them will not resolve anything. My personal opinions about the administration were not and are not dictating what is published. When people submit, I publish, as I am doing with your postings. Once more, what I said about you and your wife, and my desire to a mutual respect remains the same. As far as the administration is concerned, we may probably agree in more issues than you think. Happy New Year to your family.

Nick

Brian, the selectmen minutes that are posted on this website are the ones given to us by the town office. My understanding in that they do not release the minutes until after they have been approved by the board. Thus the reason the minutes we have posted were at least on session behind.

Now the personal observations of what transpires at a meeting, are just that,observations. Since I work most Tuesday evening I can not attend. I invite you to write your take on each of these meetings and submit them. Review of your post suggest that you do most of your reflection at night when the house is quiet. How about writing something Tuesday nights after the selectmen meeting to be posted the following day on the website.

I thank you for your continued support and use of this website. As you know it is not the quanity of readers but the quality.

I am a little confussed. Where on this website is the minutes from the town office? or are u refering to the link to the town office? There is someone that all ready records every meeting and takes minutes. My view would naturally be biased and probally innacurate. For example, I may misunderstand an issue, not hear someone correctly, etc. That is why it is best to leave it to the offical minutes, reported without any bias and reviewed by all the selectmen before publication. If someone really wants to know what happens at a meeting they should attend. If they can't they can always ask someone who did or just wait for the minutes to be published.

Maybe I misread your comment about minutes being published on this site without being accepted or signed. My comment was that any minutes published here as official minutes come directly from the Town office.

I agree that if people can not attend they should ask somebody, thus the idea of posting personal observations, which should be sited as such. Then read the offical minutes. We cannot always attend meetings (I work most nights in Augusta), but want to know what was discussed.

Even the newspapers will have some slant or omissions, so consider writing a piece. Selectmen meet tomorrow night.

Now wouldn't it be interesting if two people submitted their views on the meeting, and have us be able to read each one, I am sure that there would be some differences.

I think we understand each other now ...but when as this site ever published any official minutes from the town office? Other than the link that put up yesterday?

The president of Senebec Lake Association is Attorney David Glaser, he lives on Sennebec Road in Appleton. He would have the complete list of active members. Arley Clark was in charge of membership for many years and we all miss her.

Thanks Kay

Well lets see, I don't know if I am qualified to comment here bacause my spelling is so bad. But what the heck here goes. I feel that under the past board of Selectmen, Andy had NO DIRECTION. He was spoon feeding you items and you as a board of Selectmen were leaning on his every word. That is not the way it works, We as the town Taxpayers ELECT people to look out for us. WE as taxpayers provide funds to see that the community is run properly. As board of Selectmen we provide funds to hire a Town Manager to run the day to day activies.to take the load off the (5)Selectmen.(When I was in office we ran the town with 3 and had no town manager to lean on). THE TOWN MANAGER WORKS FOR YOU!!, YOU AS ELECTED OFFICIALS WORK FOR THE TAXPAYERS AND VOTERS OF UNION Not the other way aroud. When we feel that the community is not bening run the way we we want Voters make changes. if the Voters are not sataified with thoes changes we make more changes until the comunity is runing the way we can live with. It will never be all things to all people. So it is like a kid on his first bike staying uprite wableing doun the road through history.
As far as bill packard goes I hope he makes Hutch nervous by looking over his work. I could give you chapter and verse on waistfull highway spending.
It is our largest tax comintment outside of our schools That is part of what we the taxpayers elected him for.
Towns people who you never see voted for Mr. Packard Bacause they were here when he was part of the town crew. We laughed at some of the things he did but he saved us money, he worked very hard day and night to serve the town. Did you know that he single handly constructed Barrett Hill road as you see it now, from just past Randell Clarks house to just past Christeen Savage's home. The road used to run out into the blueberry fields not on town property you could not pass that part in the winter. Bill took it appon himself to strighten the road and build it on town property as you see it today. Oh by the way he did it for a budget of $1000 dolors and with all the money Hutch spends he has never inproved that strech of road. Did you know Bill was nearly killed out spreading sand in a ice storm so some damm fool could go out and get a pack of Cigerets or something lost control on the sheer ice and went off the road had to be cut out of the town truck, got pretty banged up we totaled the truck. alyes wondered how he lived through that one. He paid his dues for this town

Speeking of Town roads The town Voted to open Barrett Hill road to the town line many years ago, and yet Hutch has got ayay with plowing and maintaining just the part he felt like fixing and plowing. You were a Selectmen why did you allow him to do that? Was it bacause you depended on Andy to do your Thinking for you?, Just take Hutches word for it? That is just one of many issues that face our elected officals every day. In Maine we Still demand a lot from our elected officals . Hell I could go on for days about union and the town crew.
This web site was my idea orignaly. I got it set up It was My idea to get the word out in Union
that things needed looking into. I have spent 30+ years in the news media, I had a Television station in Knox County. Bacause I don't play well with others that the rest of our orignal group thought it would be better if I let other more moderate voices be herd, besides, I can't spell worth a damm. So don't keep ragging on Nick about not bening re elected to office You did that yourself
The voters decided to make a change it is just as simple as that!
Hell the town would not have a web site if we did not get this one up and running, check it out look into your town report.You had a cable channel for years and the money to run it but Andy chose not use it. Why? is it bacause selectmen did not want people seeing what was going on.It is the job of public elected officals to keep towns peopple informed of what is going on. Did your adminstration
Strive to do that? or post meetings in the town office at the last minuite and hope no wone but Austin showed up. Even the town report The same town report that you were happy to let others control the distrabition of and when volentiers wanted to deliver it to the people you got mad. why was that.? IT is time that the public taxpayer gets something for his/her money/ The town hall gang has had thier way for to long.
Why did you stand by and support Andy & other town hall employies when they tried to get rid of Linda MscAlaster our ELECTED treasurer She was protecting our tax money and not allowing money to be spent in area's that Ue did not vote for! The same people who remember Bill Packard Rember the service Linda MacAlaster has given to the town.
The Freadom of speech is being defended every day. My son Spent 22 years in the navy My Daughter 24 and just returned from Kuwait My whole family through history have served to protect this way of life.