Sturbridge's Tea Party Dilemma

So here is a tea party conundrum of sorts, if your town spends money to restore something after they remove it from a place where it was, but no one knows why it was removed in the first place, and now another group wants to put the restored item back to where it came from at the risk of damaging it and throwing away good money, and that group that wants to restore it are the town's veterans, which side should the tea party take?


Well that seems to be the case here in Sturbridge. You see before the Town Hall was renovated, there was a monument out front with plaques listing the town's veterans. As I recall this monument was built by Rosario "Rosie" Chamberland and was beautiful monument. The monument was removed, but much like the case of the front doors not being able to be used, no one seems to know who gave permission for these to be taken down. The plaques themselves were moved into the Town Hall. The town spent $4500 on restoring/cleaning these plaques.

Now the veterans in town have asked if they could once again be placed outside, which would require the rebuilding of the monuments. The Town's Veteran's Agent is against the move, arguing the plaques will again be damaged by the elements, which would essentially mean the town threw away the $4500. So which side should a good tea partier be on?

The fiscally conservative side of me says the plaques should remain inside. First, since no one seems to know who approved the demolition of the original monument, that money was thrown away and then since we had to spend the money to restore the plaques, which no could be damaged again, we would now be out that money plus whatever it costs to rebuild the monument outside. 

The patriotic American side of me says these plaques should be outside where they belong, so people can see them even when the Town Hall is closed. Veterans have every right to be able to show their names, and those of their friends off to their  family and others. We owe everything we have to the veterans of this country, they were willing to sacrifice all to protect the freedoms we enjoy in this country and we should give them whatever they want.

The Board of Selectmen voted to (drum roll please) put the monument back up. The right choice in my book. And I bet we might even be able to find some slightly used bricks to build it with.