To the Editor:

The city of Bath operates as if you couldn’t have intelligent input, creative ideas or any suggestions for improvements. We know they are wrong. We believe you matter. You have the right to be aware and make suggestions about major issues.

The current method makes important decisions in executive session — totally private meetings with no minutes, and penalties to any attendee who might make any of the information public. When things are done in secret and mistakes are made, no one knows who made the mistake; no one can discuss the problem; no one can develop a better system for the future. If no one is responsible, then nobody takes ownership of the problem and nobody learns from the error.

When you were a child, a secret was something to look forward to, but for a governing organization a secret is just another way of saying you, the citizen and taxpayer, don’t matter.

They meet in secret, make decisions without all the information, cost the taxpayer’s money and then say no one is responsible. With no minutes, no witnesses and no ability to speak without punishment, how could anyone get to the bottom of any issue?

It is said in business that we often learn more from our mistakes than from our successes. Why does our City Council and city manager feel they have nothing to learn?

The sale of the old Bath Hospital is just one of many examples of the few doing what they want with no possibility of oversight. The list of mistakes and poor decisions on this sale is long. We can outline them all, but they all stem from you being kept in the dark. Do you want your attorney, your accountant, your broker or any other of your trusted advisors to keep secrets from you? They are your fiduciaries, just like City Council. When they sold the hospital in a secret, private sale well below market, they took money from our pockets. We taxpayers must make up the loss.

You matter, and you should demand not to be treated that way.

No more secret meetings, private sales and no one ever responsible.

Tell your City Council to stop keeping secrets.

Larry Scott
Mike Wischkaemper
Bath