KenO’Brien
There are those who feel that my open meeting lawcomplaint was a minor matter undeserving of any serious attention.I profoundly disagree with this view for numerousreasons. The most fundamental reason is that it relates directly to therelentless effort to amend the town charter on terms that are beneficial toparticular political interests. I can only imagine the outrage of many of thosepursuing this agenda if a similar campaign was mounted, with analogouspolitical chicanery, to alter the U.S. Constitution.
Beyond this basic philosophical issue, there are anumber of specific matters at stake.
The first area is related to process. Under thisheading I would focus on four specific matters.
Number 1 is the inherent hypocrisy of the vice-chairon the matter of the Open Meeting Law. For those who can recall, she made amajor issue of all town appointees as well as elected officials to take anonline test and provide certification of having passed it. This was during thesame time that the Charter Review Committee was pursuing its delegated task.Since that time her devotion to the matter has been shown to have been atriumph of style over substance.
Number 2 is the abject failure of the council chairto adhere to proper procedure, whether relating to the open meeting law or, asI’ve pointed out on numerous prior occasions, town council rules or RobertsRules of Order,
Number 3 is the town manager’s never-ending tendencyto minimize his own ineptitude by attempting to “spin” such shortcomings asminor matters rather than incompetence. This ranges from attempting to passthis matter off as merely an “administrative matter” to his reference to hisrelentless pursuit of the landfill road that he inadvertently termed himself “theKhyber Pass.”
Number 4 is the failure of any councilor at themeeting to point out that this action was in fact a violation of the openmeeting law. They are elected in part to exercise this kind of oversight ratherthan leaving it to private citizens.
The second area is related to the content of thelegislation in question and has at least two elements.
Number 1 is the ongoing effort by the town manager,going back to the original proceedings of the Charter Review Committee, toincrease the number of votes required to remove him from office.
The foundation of his argument is that it takes sixvotes to remove the council chair but only five to remove the town manager. Inhis opinion, and that of his acolytes on the council, the threshold for bothshould be the same.
The argument is fundamentally fallacious. Thecouncil chair is elected in two stages; first to the council by the public andsecond to the chairmanship by the council membership. The chair is designatedby the charter as the head of town government.
The town manager, on the other hand, is a hiredemployee. It is not too far-fetched to say that the argument would be likesaying that removal of the head of the postal service should require the sameprocedure as that for the removal of the President.
Number 2 has to do with the composition of the Boardof Health. This has been an ongoing tap dance by administrations since theBoard was first illegitimately stacked by Clayton Carlisle.
Citizens attempted to garner a court verdict on thismatter, but, as I’ve again written about in the past, this was stymied by thetown and its attorneys using our tax dollars to delay any action until thecitizens’ financial resources were depleted.
Also, whereas the original vote was to go to anelected BOH, who can forget councilor Regis’ sudden reversal on that matterafter receiving “dozens of phone calls.” PLEEZ!
The third area relates to the consequences of votingto further this legislation, and it also has two components.
Number 1 is the addition of ten separate questionsto the June election ballot. This is, of course, in addition to the regularelection matters of town councilors, school committee members and other townoffices. I can guarantee chaos on the matter.
Number 2 is the fact that the vote would take placein June of 2013. The charter mandates the appointment of a new Charter ReviewCommittee just one year later.
This has reached the point of absurdity. Why consumeany more time and effort on doing something that may potentially be undone ayear later?
Further, having seen how the work of the priorCharter Review Committee was casually cast aside, who of any substance andintegrity would want to serve on such a body?
The fourth and final area has to do with politicalconsiderations.
Number 1, the town is injecting itself into thecurrent race for state representative in the sixth Worcester district. Clearlythe original oversight of the special legislation was mishandled by theincumbent, or there would be no need to move to this step. Now we are going torequest action by a potential lame duck to remedy the original screw up.
Number 2 is the simple matter of the mounting degreeto which our town is being viewed with ridicule. The incompetence with whichthis matter has been handled, the unrelenting stream of open meeting lawcomplaints, the constant onslaught of lawsuits against the town and numerousother matters have already made us a laughingstock in many quarters. Is therereally any need to add to the list with this?
For these reasons I believe that my action in filingthis complaint was anything but dilatory.
Similarly, I believe that, based upon theseconsiderations, item number 20 on Monday’s council agenda should be voted down.
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