To The Editor:

I find Chairman Foug­ere’s letter to the editor in the May 26th issue of The Cabinet to be so discon­nected from the reality he claims to represent that I must respond to ensure the residents of Milford know the real facts.

Two bids have been re­ceived by the town for the Brox excavation project. Neither bid comes close to producing the $900,000 in revenue that Chair­man Fougere notes in his letter of the 26th, nor the $780,000-$1,000,000 in revenue that the Board of Selectmen used to trick the voters into approving the 2016 warrant article for the project in their majority report on War­rant Article 23. In fact, both bids came in under $600,000.

Chairman Fougere knew this at the time he wrote his letter because the bids had already been submitted. The BOS knew their numbers were in­flated at the time they published their majority report for the warrant ar­ticle based on a prelimi­nary bid they had in hand. Why are Chairman Foug­ere and the BOS still tout­ing their inflated num­bers and misleading the residents? If this plan has zero tax impact, as stated in the warrant article, why do it?

As Chairman Fougere notes in his letter, the BOS will ask the Plan­ning Board and the Con­servation Commission for their input. They will then promptly ignore the input if it doesn’t support their plan. Chairman Fougere made it clear in his letter that he believes that the Conservation Commission chair, Au­drey Fraizer, is providing "misleading quotes" to The Cabinet. She is doing her job, and doing it very well.

I applaud and thank Chairwoman Fraizer for standing up and not be­ing bullied by a chairman and BOS who clearly have an agenda that may in fact violate the state’s environ­mental laws. Chairman Fougere conveniently for­gets to mention the fact that there are several spe­cies of animals inhabiting the entire Brox property that are protected, not just the turtles. We can only hope that the con­tractor understands this and doesn’t kill any of these animals, as there are substantial penalties for such offenses.

The 100-foot buffers that Chairman Fougere notes in his letter were put in place in 2012 by the Commerce & Commu­nity District Plan – Zoning Ordinance 6.06. The BOS must adhere to the zoning ordinance. The 180,000 cubic yards of gravel that the BOS, in their benevo­lence, is setting aside is required by the town zon­ing laws that the voters approved several years ago.

All of the real facts stat­ed above are supported by town and state documents that can be provided upon request. Chairman Foug­ere is correct in that facts are stubborn things, and the real facts are present­ed above.

In closing, I believe that The Cabinet and Kathy Cleveland have done an excellent job in reporting the facts in an unbiased manner in their news ar­ticles. I commend the edi­tor for publishing letters representing both sides of this contentious issue in the Letters to the Editor section. I, for one, appre­ciate The Cabinet for pro­tecting the First Amend­ment rights of everybody to publish their views even if they don’t agree with my position.

David McManus

Milford