"You're one of the most honest people I know."

A friend of mine said that to me not long ago, and I could get no higher compliment.

Ethics is another part of my campaign platform, and those of you close to me know that this is one of my pet peeves.

Last spring, the selectmen presented to town meeting a budget that included an override - a Proposition 2-1/2 tax increase - that was packaged as a water tower.

You see, instead of balancing the budget or being honest and telling us that the town had to have the money, the selectmen instead decided to present the tax increase as payments for a water tower - a tower that had already been paid for. Many town meeting members complained bitterly about this, but oddly enough they went on to approve the budget with the override.

You weren't fooled; the override failed at the polls in May.

On several occasions, members of various town boards - selectmen included - have failed to properly recuse themselves when they had a conflict of interest. Either a relative was involved, there was a financial interest, or they held a strong personal opinion that amounted to bias. I'll not go into detail here, as the examples I could use are so obvious that they amount to finger-pointing, and I'm not trying to single out any one person.

One of the reasons why people are so disillusioned with government is the lack of ethics. Everything that government does - and this includes town government - should be able to survive the light of day. If it can't, then we shouldn't be doing it.

We CAN do better.