When Ted North announced his candidacy for an open seat on the Marion Board of Selectmen, he did so aiming to bring better management and financial planning to town business.

North, a Marion resident since 2005 and a corporate lawyer, has spent one term on both the Marion Planning Board and the Capital Improvement Planning Committee, which he said has made him “pretty sharp with the numbers.”

“There’s no planning in this town,” he said. “Spending wisely doesn’t seem to be in the vocabulary here. This town is headed for a financial train wreck if it continues in the way it’s been going.”

The biggest pitfall of the town’s budget is the inflow and infiltration in Marion’s Village, he said. The problem is that due to the decline of the 100-year old drainage pipes in the Village, clean water has been going into the sewer system.

Engineers from Camp, Dresser and McKee have proposed an eight-year, $27 million plan to repair the roads, and replace the drainage pipes.

Since CDM first proposed the project in January, town officials have clashed over whether or not the town could afford it. North has been one of the more vocal opponents of the proposal.

“That project just came out of the blue,” he said. “We talked about it in January 2011 and thought it was coming out of the Department of Public Works budget, and now it’s blossomed into the single biggest project in Marion’s history.”

The proposal will have to go before a Town Meeting to move forward, but before that can happen, North said, “more homework needs to be done.”

“We have engineering firms coming in and they want to build a Taj Mahal, but we may not need a Taj Mahal,” North said. “ I think we need a second opinion.”

North said the lack of planning on this project, as well as others, is what concerns him. After having spent time on the Planning Board and on the Capital Improvement Planning Committee, he said he appreciates the planning process and making sure everyone gets a say.

“There may be design changes on a project, such as the new Cumberland Farms, but with the Planning Board, we make those changes to make it more palatable to the town,” he said.

North is running against Marion Recreation Department Director Jody Dickerson one seat on the board.

If elected to the Board of Selectmen North said he will step down from his positions on the two other town boards to focus on better town management.

“One of the most important things the Selectmen can do is make sure there are talented people in the senior spots of government that can take care of business,” he said.  “The Selectmen help guide the policy and participate in a singular direction of the town. By doing that they can help mitigate some of the horrendous financial difficulty. Some of our boards have some really good talent.”

“There’s a unique character to Marion,” he said. “You just can’t replace it. That’s why I got active in town government.”