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Letter To The Editor

Tuesday February 3, 2009

To the People of Bristol, Monkton and the Five Town Area,
The Bill Baker family is sorry to announce that we
are no longer caretakers (Keeper of the Ponds) for Bristol
and Monkton Ponds. We worked 19 years caring for the
ponds. As Bill has acute anxiety disorder and is limited
to what he can do, he checked on Bristol Pond a minimum
of twice a day and visited Monkton Pond almost daily.
We plowed snow in the winter time, kept the areas
extremely clean and in the summertime maintained the
road, cut dead trees, and picked up every conceivable
type of rubbish. We also installed public docks at no
charge. We are told by Fish & Wildlife officals that our
free public docks may have to be taken out as we do not
have liability insurance on them. We billed the State for
our services at 20 percent or less for our time for a huge
savings to the State of Vermont.
On November 7, 2008 we received a notice that the
snowblowing jobs were gong out to bid. Vendors have to
maintain a one million dollar insurance policy for
snowblowing and if working on the area in the
summertime a separate one million dollar insurance
policy. The insurance was to be reimbursed to the vendors
at a per-plow basis and insurance for raod work was to
be reimbursed by the State at a per-hour worked rate.
Bill realized that he and other vendors would most likely
never get their full insurance money returned. Bill called
Governor Douglas, Commissioner of Forest, Parks and
Recreation Jonathan Wood, and Mike Wichrowski of Fish
& Wildlife and urged them to drop the insurance
requirements as therewas nothing in the fishing access
areas to damage and poor people would lose their jobs
because of this insurance requirement. He also informed
the above three that the State could buy umbrella
insurance at a very low rate, check the vendors’ driving
records to be sure they have clean records, and in turn
save the State a lot of money.
In short, Bill submitted bids and they were rejected.
On November 17, the day the bids were opened, Bill
called Mike Wichrowski at Fish & Wildlife and asked
him to release the results of the sealed bids which by law
are public record. Mike informed Bill, “Because of you
and people like you I cannot get my work done efficiently.
You are wasting taxpayers’ money.” Bill reminded Mike
that he was disabled, had plowed two fishing access areas
for 19 years and was a taxpayer, and he wanted to keep
his job. Mike angrily told Bill that vendors like him, little
vendors with few driveways and little or no insurance,
were to expensive for the State of Vermont to hire. He
said that the bigger vendors with many driveways and
parking lots were able to work cheaper and could spread
insurance costs over many jobs. Therefore, the State is
forced to hire the big vendors. Bill was extremely stunned.
after two months of bickering we finally learned that
one contractor from Barre received 35 Fish & Wildlife
snowplowing jobs, anothe contractor received 17 of the
areas, and another contractor received 4. out of 64
possible jobs, 56 of them went to 3 excavating companies.
that left 8 areas left for bidding.
In conclusion, we lost the job we oved as keeper of
Bristol and Monkton Ponds. We thank all the people that
helped us and incouraged us to keep these areas clean
over the past years.

Respectfully Yours,
Bill Baker & Family

P.S. for a free copy of a three-page copy of “Our Story,”
Please call 453-4235.

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