Who's watching our money? Maybe this is the answer

This one goes for just $129. (Courtesy image)

A few years ago Corinna Cole got a citizen's petition on the ballot asking Lebanon residents to approve a few hundred dollars to purchase video equipment to record selectmen's meetings.

Residents approved the measure by a wide margin, but the money was never paid out because of some legal problems with the wording of the ballot question.

At a subsequent selectmen's meeting Cole railed against what she perceived to be selectmen's continued obstruction of bowing to the voters' will, which was to institute videotaping of board meetings.

An exasperated Selectman Ben Thompson at the time even suggested just giving Cole the $500 or so she'd asked for in the ballot question so she could see what she could do to bring her hope to fruition.

Nothing ever came of it. Cole never got her money.

But that's not the point of this column.

However, if the money's still around, I can think of an even better use of $500: three body cams (you can get a good one for $150) for the road commissioner, the EMS chief and the transfer station manager.

The road commissioner has a budget of close to a $1,000,000 and the EMS chief has about half of that.

Seeing how they spend their time on our dime would go a long way toward instilling confidence and pride in these three departments and their bosses.

Trust me, if this town were a private entity that answered to corporate administrators, stockholders and CEOs, those cameras would already be in place.

Bank surveillance cameras not only spy robbers and fraud suspects, they see tellers trying to pilfer money as well and serve as a deterrent to such activity.

Now I'm not saying for one moment any of our department chiefs are doing anything dishonest or untoward, not for a minute.

However, with the amount of money they are caretakers for, and for the amount of money their departments extract from town coffers, there is nothing dishonorable in us wanting more openness in seeing where our hard-earned money is spent.

It's called openness and transparency of government.

Of course the cameras could be turned off for private time or when they're off the clock for lunch. However, when they're on the clock, they literally, belong to us. It's our money, and we're the boss. Right? Well, that's what they tell us, at least.

And for those department heads affected by having to wear the cameras, consider it a badge of honor. You should be proud to show townspeople just how hard you work.