News
Spring Town Meeting voters approved - without change - a municipal budget including the schools for FY 2016 totaling $34,211,191 - up 2.61 percent from last year. A number of line departments reflected increases, some of them significant.
In the area of employee benefits, costs for retirement...
Spring Town Meeting voters shot down - by a narrow margin - a vote to conduct a secret ballot on warrant Article 4 that would have given non-binding direction to Selectmen as to whether or not the electorate wants them to renew Town Manager Mark Haddad's contract for another three-year term. Vote...
Showing his willingness to buck conventional wisdom, Jack Petropoulos will deliver a minority report at Town Meeting opposing spending about $2 million on a fire protection project which includes extending water mains to Lost Lake, not because he opposes providing additional Fire Protection for...
Ed. Note: The following report is news analysis. The purpose of such reporting is to provide context to an ongoing, complex, story that is difficult to understand without some background. Such reporting involves a certain amount of interpretation and explanation.
Selectmen's decision to seek a...
The struggle to generate interest from those businesses located at the Four Corners in Groton continues as none of them has given whole-hearted endorsement to the potential for installation of municipal sewer for their properties. Cost of the effort would be close to $3M - with $285K of that for...
Benchmarking: A Valuable Financial Tool
Benchmarking' or Financial Benchmarking is a process used to evaluate various aspects of an organizations performance in relation to similar organizations. Without benchmarking comparison, it is very difficult to know how well an organization is being...
Two bidders are vying for ownership of the little village school in West Groton that has sat vacant for the last six years, and despite best efforts, has drawn no interest up to now.
According to Town Manager Mark Haddad, the town received two bids for Tarbell School - one for $30K from Groton...
Town Manager Mark Haddad advised Selectmen that an agreement has been reached regarding the parking lot located between Town Hall and the former Center Fire Station.
The property, owned by Groton resident Steve Webber, will be purchased by Dan and Lori McElroy, owners of the Fire Station, for $...
With a new Golf Pro and excitement building at Groton Country Club, Town Manager Mark Haddad advised Selectmen that there are some repairs immediately necessary for the tee-box at Hole 2 and additional repairs, although not as urgent at Holes 7 and 8.
Haddad said he had a copy of a bid for work...
The town's procedures for evaluating building construction costs and associated building permit fees came to light as a result of the three-fold increase over the original estimate for construction costs of new space at Groton School. [See related story on this page.]
"Regardless of the procedure...