Arlington Town Meeting

26 April 2003


So far my candidate for most ludicrous (which is not necessarily the same as worst) article has got to be Article 69. In it, 10 registered voters are asking the town to reimburse a company for building permit fees it paid, the project not being built due to a change of mind on the part of the property owner.

To be fair, I do not know the full story behind this, but I find it very hard to imagine any set of circumstances that would lead me to vote for it. In my view, the contractor should be seeking the $930 from the property owner, not the town. And if the contract did not say that the owner would reimburse the contractor permitting fees if the project was not built, then I think it is too bad for the contractor. I fail to see a chain of thought that would place a moral obligation on the Town to reimburse the contractor when it was the property owner who nixed the project.


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