It would seem that the town of Brunswick has a problem at the helm. In recent years we have built a new school, even though we knew the U.S. Navy base was leaving and school enrollment would drop substantially. We did it anyway.

Then we went on to close Longfellow School and Jordan Acres School. From what I heard from a neighbor who attended a recent meeting in the Pejepscot Terrace community building in my neighborhood, the new elementary school is so crowded that a few townspeople have decided to send their children to private school.

We have traded Longfellow School for the McLellan Building, so that school is gone. And because someone did not do their homework when Jordan Acres School was closed we can not reopen that school and bring it up to code, which is required when a building is closed and then reopened. It would cost millions of dollars to do so.

Somebody goofed big time on that one. Jordan Acres School has a broken structural beam because snow was allowed to accumulate too long on the roof a few winters ago. It never should have happened, and couldn’t we have kept some adult education programs going in that building to avoid closing it completely?

Speaking of Jordan Acres School, close to my home, the annex building was used as a “controlled smoke drill” by the fire department, a good thing as it was a wreck.

The job never got finished, however, and the building sits there dark, with pieces hanging off and one window broken (last week).

It should be burned now by the Brunswick Fire Department, as it is an eyesore waiting for a break-in, drug activity or a bad accident at night. There is one light burning at night on the whole Jordan Acres property.

Trash accumulates from people who walk through or come to use the wonderful playground equipment that Jordan Acres parents bought and paid for.

I walk every night and I go through the school yard. The property is a break-in or worse waiting to happen. Two weeks ago a stabbing took place in a house behind the school, and the perpetrator was apprehended by the Brunswick police as he tried to flee through the school property.

As for the issue of where the police will move to, the recent meeting at Pejepscot Terrace also brought out the fact that when the town of Brunswick bought the old Times Record building for the police department to move to, the police chief had not determined whether the building and location would work for the police department. The building now needs substantial repairs.

As far as the Stanwood Street location for a new police station goes, it is a three-way accident waiting to happen.

The police department does not need a gym for its officers to work out at. There is a gym at the Recreation Center next door to the current police station. There are also gyms and fitness facilities and equipment at Maine Pines, Planet Fitness, Brunswick schools and other sites. Whether the town is paying for gym memberships or the individuals, the facilities are already here.

Finally, if the Brunswick Town Office moves to the McLellan Building, the Brunswick police could have that whole municipal building on Federal Street. The McLellan Building is not an old one and should need very little in the way of retrofitting to accommodate the town offices.

As Brunswick taxpayers for the past 20 years, my husband and I have seen our taxes rise in the majority of those years. We have no brush or limb pickup, no household waste that won’t fit into the required green bags, no leaf or grass cuttings pickup.

We do have a very good recycling program, and for that the town is to be commended. However, taxes alone cannot support the kind of activity above.

The town needs to do its homework before any more big projects are undertaken in order to avoid wasting any more tax money from us, the citizens.

Sherry B. Hanson lives in Brunswick.

letters@timesrecord.com