With Foster ending his term in June, the door opened for a new leader on the Council. That chair was filled first by Alison Libbey and most recently by Deborah Mancini.

Now Mancini, elected with Margaret Hutchins in June, has gained the support of newly-chosen Councilor Tracey Scheckel to stop Upham and Crane from forcing items on our town without consideration for the will of the voters.

Upham has presented some very good ideas for our town. Sadly, he is unwilling to listen to anyone who explains to him why these ideas won't work. A good example is the Knight's bridge on Mayall Road. For the last couple of years, Upham has questioned the engineering of the proposed replacement of that bridge, essentially preventing construction.

This foot dragging on Upham's part has left the town with a bridge unable to accommodate fire trucks in an emergency, due to a new 10-ton weight limit. While Upham has opposed the bridge on the grounds of possible damage from the bridge outflow to the property of a single landowner, all of our citizens who live beyond the bridge have now had their property placed in danger. This bridge should be reengineered and completed in the spring to avoid any catastrophes.

Upham has also strongly advocated for three bids on all town projects. He has then "crunched the numbers" to arrive at a conclusion on which bid is the best. A recent example was the bid request for the purchase of winter sand. Upham said that only one bid was completed, and his number crunching showed that bidder as the winner. He simply wouldn't listen to other Councilors, including Mancini, who patiently explained that we had received six bids for the winter sand, and that his number crunching had arrived at an incorrect conclusion.

It's one thing to have good ideas and present them to our town. It's another to ignore our citizens and other councilors when they prove to you that you are wrong about those ideas.

Upham, Foster and Crane changed the town's Comprehensive Plan to allow the building of a Hannaford Bros. store on Shaker Road across from the Public Safety Building. I find it interesting that Mancini actually supports this decision. That shows me that Upham's ideas aren't all bad - they simply need balance.

Our town government is now back in balance, and I hope to see us moving forward with decisions that meet the needs of all our citizens.