To the editor: 

This is about the FTM, "the forgot to mention meeting," about the $800,000 more needed. 

Anyone with a modicum of intellectual abilities knows that this kind of gargantuan undertaking understands that the cost probably will go up. But at what point are you going to care about this rising cost? When are you going to re-evaluate it? People who pushed for and voted for the project as laid out cannot "shop til they drop" and use other peoples' money to pay for it.

Checking everyone's ID at the school building for a chance to issue a yes or no vote for this kind of extravagance to be paid for out of every taxpayer's pocket is a travesty! This is not only disrespectful, it is unconstitutional. 

We have a system in our democracy that states that everyone in our towns, our cities, our rural areas in all our states have a right to place their votes publicly at the polling places where they live and have the freedom to vote their choice. Any other way of doing it is really dis-avowing our rights as citizens of a constitutionally protected society. 

Places like Barrington, Warren, Bristol and Tiverton are not so special that they can ignore this right to vote that is endowed to every citizen at a public polling place. There is nothing to be proud of for these towns in the way they hold a meeting on issues that affects everyone living in them when everyone cannot have a chance to place their vote at an uninfluenced polling place.

This is not so hard to understand as it is what our forefathers meant for us and is specified in our Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. Let all voters place their individual votes after being informed of the issues at specified polling places after the FTM.

Take responsibility for what happens to you in our town.

And remember, all voters lives really do matter.

Barbara Flanders

Barrington