To the editor:

Wednesday's edition of the Times does much to illustrate the inability of those who should be in charge of this community to exercise their authority.

How something like the Granite Savings Bank could evolve into a public snit involving those who confuse power with authority escapes me. It approaches a disgrace that the key article of the Fall Town Meeting lies unresolved just a few working days prior to that meeting.

The building didn't just fall out of the sky; its future has been well known for a year. Now, our town grapples with it like kids in a sandbox. The Finance Committee met to render its verdict the other night — and the chairman of the Planning Committee conducted a forum on the same subject on the same date; how this is an issue involving Mr. Coulbourn's group is difficult to fathom.

In the meantime, a group of taxpayers will be expected to reach a decision Monday evening. It might be well if all others stayed at home that evening and permitted Messrs. Gardiner, Hassler, and Lewis to settle the issue with a weapon of choice.

Why is it necessary to make this town look so foolish?

There is more reason than ever to protest the illegality of this circus regardless of how the article is posed, and I have received assurances from Boston that, regardless of the end result, there is an interest in how this fiasco came into being.

In addition, last Friday's paper (The Times, Aug. 29) contains Mr. Gardiner's disdain for a change in the appointment of the Finance Committee. Yet he is living through an event that underscores the problem.

There has been a lack of leadership, a lack of direction, and, perhaps, lack of understanding of why townspeople think a change is needed in this venue. Is it too much to ask these power-mad people to perform the charge of their committee and get the work done on time?

H.H. Wescott

Rockport