Donahue acknowledged that the board may have made some procedural errors during the search for a new town administrator.
    "We’re unpaid volunteers," she said. "We got caught in a web of technicalities. Yes, it’s a violation of the Open Meeting Law, technically. There are a lot of technicalities and of which we need to be more aware. I don’t know if the DA is targeting us. I don’t know if we’re being hit harder than anyone else. It certainly seems that way sometimes."


Is that what you said when the other bos members did one violation? We unpaid volunteers?

"You dirty rats, I don't apologize to no one or for nothin",says James Cagney Cronan..

Hi...I'm running for re-election as your Selectman. I am unpaid and a volunteer and a dumbass, so there isn't any reason not to elect me, because you know what you are getting.
An unpaid dumbass.
Thank you for your support.

I like that P-Span....DANOHAMATRON5000....cool!

Selectman Brenda Eckstrom went so far as to attempt to diminish the violations by repeatedly calling them technicalities. "Yes, it's a violation of the Open Meeting Law, technically," she said. Hiring a new CEO in secret is a technicality? The assertion is laughable.

Further, she seemed to argue that the end justified the means, saying, "The bottom line is we got a great town administrator and we don't have to (conduct the search) again."


TRANSLATION: The bottom line is we got an unemployable Town Administrator at a cut rate..He will become our new butt-monkey!!

Did I hear someone say RECALL??

ruk, 
I don't think it's hypocrisy.  It's ignorance.  I will bet the farm that none of them have still read MGL CH. 39 Section 23B.  It IS the law that governs open meetings.
This is exactly why municipalities pay 6 figures for QUALIFIED managers.
We can't seem to get that right either.  Nothing personal against Mr. Andrews but I don't see any municipal management experience and no experience with MGL relative to managing municipal operations.
MORE LEGAL EXPENSES because no one knows their jobs.  Talk about accountability...K & P thanks you all very much.  We can't do anything without them.
Still no Planner (going on two years), no library director, an unqualified accountant, a COA director that has caused just about every volunteer to quick due to her lack of people skills. And on and on.  IT HAS TO END !

C'mon April 6th !

Note To the Standard-Times: Your pay-per-view policy is self defeating. Expect your enterprise to turn toes up and die.

Standard-Times, 2010-02-12

Hold them to it
Wareham has not complied with DA's conditions

Most selectmen, if they were found guilty of 16 Open Meeting Law violations in a single year and compelled by the district attorney to read the findings aloud, would add some sort of apology, or say it was an accident, for political reasons if nothing else.

Not in Wareham.

The Board of Selectmen's acknowledgment of the findings at Tuesday's
meeting was reluctant at best. Some members' actions reveal a troubling disdain for the principles of open government embodied in the Open Meeting Law.

Acting Chairman John Cronan read two letters from the office of District Attorney Timothy J. Cruz. Though Cronan said in the briefest possible fashion that town counsel had answered the letters, that was it — no apology, no explanation, no defense.

The unlawfully closed-door meetings involved the hiring of a new town administrator — essentially the town's CEO — and the launch of a covert search of town computers.

The latter was an outrageous breach of public trust passed off as an"audit" of all non-school computers owned by the town.

In reality, members of the board were trying to ferret out employees who posted negative comments about them online — not because the employees were making personal use of town computers, but to identify political enemies. In one of the illicit meetings, a selectman called a pair of employees the"two biggest rats that work for the town."

If the selectmen had legitimate aims, they could have discussed computer use at a public meeting. Surely residents would have appreciated a good-faith effort to stop employees from wasting time surfing the Internet. But that wasn't the selectmen's goal.

Even if the audit were legitimate, it would not have been a legitimate reason to go into closed-door session. The exceptions to the state's Open Meeting Law are specific, and the law itself was designed specifically to prevent the type of secret government the Wareham selectmen have been practicing.

Tuesday was the board's time to make amends, in word if not deed, by admitting to Wareham residents that the meetings did not comply with the Open Meeting Law and pledging not to make the same mistake again.

In fact, one of the conditions set by the district attorney regarding hiring was that the board"announce publicly in open session that it will not conduct such screening and interview processes in this manner in the future,"but the board did nothing of the kind.

Selectman Brenda Eckstrom went so far as to attempt to diminish the violations by repeatedly calling them technicalities. "Yes, it's a violation of the Open Meeting Law, technically," she said. Hiring a new CEO in secret is a technicality? The assertion is laughable.

Further, she seemed to argue that the end justified the means, saying, "The bottom line is we got a great town administrator and we don't have to (conduct the search) again." On the contrary, the bottom line is Wareham selectmen continue to thumb their noses at the public's right to know what their government is doing.

Until they meet the district attorney's conditions, the matter is not closed. Cruz and his staff should hold the selectmen to every letter of those conditions and contemplate further action if the board does not comply.

Last edited by old timer (2010-02-12 16:31:22)