The evening of 2026-08-10 was a meeting of the Mendon Town Board.
Big topic was health, even as no actions where taken there tonight. First through a Municipal Health Insurance Consortium presentation. Then with discussion about the urgent care (perhaps) going in at 20 North Main Street.
Besides that, also a few interesting tidbits that stood out.
Highway Department has made ~$600k in revenue so far this year, by doing work for the State and County. While I know they do work for them every year, I don’t know how this compares. Is it more? Less? Either way, it’s a decent chunk of change.
The attorney fees were again in excess of the planned monthly limit. I have no opinion on if this is a good or bad thing. But I do find the frequency this comes up to be rather amusing.
Back to health, first we have insurance. The Town has been looking at joining a Consortium. Previously, they had asked for more information. Tonight they got at least some of that with a presentation. Which you can go watch, if you so choose. What stood out to me was the minimum 3 year commitment, having to make 2 reserve funds, and the Consortium’s push to only offering Town employees one health plan.
Which had me thinking, health insurance is alot like socialism. People who don’t really need the service as much pay the bills for those who do. And to make the math work, the available options are limited. Otherwise, the insurance company would run out of money. Because sick people would take the high coverage plans, to stabilize their costs. While the healthy people would take minimal coverage plans, there in case things go horribly wrong. Just the two most obvious groups, of the many out there. Who all have different needs and wants, because people are different. On the plus side here, at least this is voluntary. If those involved don’t like it, they can walk away. Unlike with actual socialism.
Then we had care, with the proposed actions involving 20 North Main both tabled. As they interlinked, as soon as the one fell through the other kind of had to. There were concerns around timing, with some documents only making it to the Town recently. But the big concern was environmental, and the risk of contaminants in the ground. To address the contaminants, the idea of Pike retaining the property, but granting the Town (and by extension, Library) use of it was mentioned. That way the Town doesn’t take on additional liability. Which seems rather silly to me, for two reasons.
First, if there are concerns about what is in the ground, wouldn’t we want to keep people off the grass? Instead of having kids out there for library events? Seems a little contradictory: You can have the liability, we’ll risk our kids.
And the second reason is ownership. We are in this situation because someone else owns the land. Continuing that situation just sets the stage for the library to once again complain, when a future property owner wants to do something with their land. Instead of taking possession now, when the option is available. Thus protecting the property by owning it.
It did have the cynic in me wondering. While the concerns are legitimate enough, how much is that driving this discussion? And how much is some kind of stalling tactic? One of those things we’ll likely never know, as the answer goes to what is in people’s heart.
And those are my Observations From Audience Land for the August 10, 2026 meeting of the Mendon Town Board.