It’s pretty common knowledge that Mark Andrews is a finalist for the Town Administrator’s job in Sherborn, Sherwood, Sherwood Forest or maybe it’s Dearborn, MI. Well it’s Sher-somewhere or other, anyway. “Praise the lord and good by!”

Could it be that knowing we are about to see the backside of Andrews (one way or another), Walter planned to assist Mark in his endeavor to leave by orchestrating a positive performance review from the BOS, hoping it might have swayed his prospective employer into stealing Andrews away from us? Sadly, this is probably not the case. But it would have been a deft ploy nonetheless.

You may not recall a similar TA we had many years ago named Charlie, or how we really got rid of him. Charlie was also a practitioner of the art of selective truths, outright lies and the skillful dissemination of information to both sides and also the press.

Perhaps Charlie's greatest skill beyond self-promotion was in fostering enmity between the factions, fanning fights and then miraculously resolving them. If you asked anyone back then they would have told you he was a wonderful mediator and peacemaker and we were lucky to have him. But the truth was that just like Andrews and all of his kind, Charlie was just good at learning the players, the politics and issues and then pitting the sides against each other while professing to be the Lone Ranger and demanding his employees do the same.

Just like now, the BOS members were at odds about Charlie. On any given day the board members were split as to his future, equally arguing one day he was the devil and the next a blessing, such was Charlie’s ability to play the game.

But, like all grifters, charlatans and conmen, Charlie recognized the end of the game was rapidly approaching and he began looking for a new community to infect, all the while at every opportunity waxing eloquently and emotionally about his future plans for his new chosen home, Wareham and its continuing wellbeing. He was particularly good at speaking of how he would be doing “X” or “Y” in the coming months, knowing full well he had no intentions of being here one day longer than was necessary.

Unfortunately, then as now, the BOS members would simply not accept or acknowledge the harm Charlie was doing to our finances or government. Then as now they ignored the please of the citizens who were forced to deal with Charlie daily. Then as now the BOS members, each having their heads positioned firmly in their collective backsides, could not put aside their individual differences long enough to do what was right for Wareham. Then as now, such was their fervor for their agendas and their animosity for each other and the dissident citizenry.

Rumor has it that Charlie finally played the wrong person. The story goes that absent the BOS’s action, someone hacked into the town’s system, cracked Charlie’s password and downloaded the dozen or so resumes and self-aggrandizing introductory letters Charlie had sent to various communities seeking a new employment opportunity. Strangely each of the BOS members, local papers and several community leaders received a full set of the Charlie’s correspondences, all of which had been mailed from Florida. 

Eventually the dysfunctional board members, who individually hadn’t given a tinker’s damn about Charlie’s lies, manipulation and subterfuge, realized that continuing to carry water for Charlie actually made them look even dumber than they were capable of making themselves look. So, in a rare moment of self-preservation, they set aside their petty differences long enough to come to the realization that, and this is really the point, as Charlie was in fact looking for another job, at least he, if not them, had realized it was over.  Finally accepting he planned to leave the BOS members also came to accept that it was therefore more likely than not that any plans or claims of Charlie’s relative to the job he was doing or planned to do, or for Wareham’s future wellbeing were most likely completely self-serving and just plain BS. (not to be confused with our own beloved BS) They each fell victim to the inescapable logic that his continued presence at the helm of our ship posed a clear and imminent danger to Wareham.

Could history repeat itself? Could the BOS band together long enough to do the right thing for Wareham? Probably not, but keep your fingers crossed anyway.


Fight the good fight