THIS MAY BE YOUR LAST CHANCE

    Right this moment we face the complete loss of our community to a sneaky, corrupt and manipulative outsider Town Administrator who has tried to fill every important position in our town with his imported cronies and outside consultants, each with no vested interest in our community.    
    Our TA is a virus that regularly demands employees, under pain of termination, withhold information from the BOS and Fin Com.     Remember when he said no one and nobody could “blow” him out of this job? Well maybe he’s right. We’ve let Andrews do everything he needs to cement himself into the job and assure that if we do fire him we pay him a huge settlement for the privilege.
   
    Mark Andrews has used his association with Mark Pacheco to manipulate our government and in turn do favors for Pacheco’s contributors at your expense.

    Andrews has ignored countless citizen’s pleas for help and then lied about it. He’s hired his unqualified friends for important positions and services in our government.

    Do any of you recall Andrews getting a $400,000 bid approved at Town meeting a couple years ago? The bid was from a qualified vendor for Wareham’s computer virtualization project? Andrews held the award for 8 months and then gave it, not to the approved vendor, but to a friend of his. When department heads were asked to sign off on Andrews’ friend they refused because the quote from Andrews’ buddy was not comprehensive and his contract did not supply the same service or brand name parts approved by Town meeting? Andrews over ruled them all and signed off himself? Most people are unaware that to date Andrews has spent $500,000 on the $400,000 job and the project is not close to completion? Andrews claims it is because the licenses were not included in the contract he signed, but folks, they were included in the $400,000 bid shown to and voted by town meeting. No one here knows how much more it will cost or when it will be done because if you ask you will be fired.

    It seems that Andrews regularly leaks confidential materials, emails and documents to favorable blogs and supporters in efforts to discredit his detractors. He has caused financial damage to many residents, as well as run our government as his own private piggy bank with little or no regard for Mass law. Andrews need not worry because he has his own private senator to protect him. He’s even had Pacheco intervene in Myles Burke’s case several times, gladly and finally to no avail.
    As I told you, the building inspector Andrews hired is only a local inspector, not a certified inspector of buildings. Myles is no kind of inspector at all and Wareham still has no one who can legally sign an occupancy permit  yet we sign them every day. I think the letter is in the mail.

    Andrews has transferred funds between department budgets, which is completely against state law. He’s tapped our medical trust fund. To avoid the adverse affects of his mismanagement he regularly lies or misleads the BOS and town meeting members. He estimated this year’s “free cash” at $600,000 plus when it was asking for approval to spend and now we know it’s going to be $300,000 at best. Not to worry, I understand he plans to take the money from the sewer enterprise fund.
    Currently the Selectman are also the Sewer Commissioners. Several meetings back, Town meeting voted to change the charter so we could elect a non-BOS professional board of sewer commissioners. What most people do not know is that Andrews has had Pacheco hold up the change in the legislature so Andrews, Begley and Snider can force Sewer Contract #3 down our throats and so Andrews continues to have access to the Sewer enterprise’s funds. Walter, Steve and Cara are against Contract 3. Unfortunately, Walter foolishly asks Andrews for a report each week on the status of the legislation change and Andrews pretends it’s out of his hands. Look up Einstein’s definition of “stupidity”>
   
    Andrews’ financial mismanagement has cost us a quarter of a million dollars in audit, accounting and consulting fees. Marsha Griswold apparently has a $58,000 a year “nothing at all required” job at the council on aging. Andrews pays Myles Burke $20,000 more a year than his predecessor and Myles cannot legally do the job he’s being paid for. Myles signed an employment contract, which, as of October, he has breached.

    Myles recently lost another appeal to the building certification board. We are waiting for the letter from the state again informing us that we have no one licensed to sign occupancy permits, but rumor has it Pacheco is delaying the letter so Andrews can move Myles into his new job.    Andrews now intends to make Myles Burke the Director of Municipal Maintenance when Mark Gifford retires. We have a police chief making $167,000 a year who it is rumored got his job here because he may have fixed Andrew’s last DUI.
    It seems that Myles Burke’s lifeguard, part time unemployed hair dresser cosmetologist girlfriend, Patty has decided to start her own Chamber of Commerce in Wareham and apparently she began the process by signing the organization papers under two separate names and then when asked, she refused to explain this little oversight to the BOS. This did not bother Walter Cruz or Mark Andrews, as they went about soliciting area businesses to leave the existing area Chamber of Commerce to join Patty’s new chamber, not to mention that Patty has free run of town hall and is allowed to harass employees at will. Even after Andrews has ordered Myles to have her cease and desist, Myles has refused to rein her in. Any other department head so ignoring the TA would have been fired.

    How much has Andrews cost us in legal settlements since he came? Who knows, but many of you are not aware that we are facing imminent additional litigation for sexual harassment, wrongful termination and constructive termination from maintaining a “hostile work environment”.
   
    Several dept heads and directors are no longer allowed to meet with Andrews one on one. This is rumored to be because Andrews has threatened their jobs and budgets if they did not keep their mouths shut about his activities.

    Did anyone at the recent fin-com meeting witness Andrews’ behavior in the hallway with an employee? He so abused the person that they had to be escorted back to their office out of fear for their safety.  What caused this you might ask, the fact that the employee insisted on telling the truth to the fin-com, despite Andrews’ orders to the contrary.

    The list of questionable acts and harm by this administrator and his minions is long and egregious.

    This Tuesday night the BOS is scheduled to give Mark Andrews his job review. His contract is up next year. It seems however that Begley, Snider and Cruz will not only praise Andrews’ performance, but I understand they intend to extend his contract early and also give him a substantial raise because after all, you cannot have his employee, the new police chief, making more than his boss. So look to Cruz and company to conspire to raise Andrews’ pay to $167,000 or more.

    It is inevitable that sooner or later Andrews goes. The problem is the damage he does in the mean time, as well as the settlement we will pay him when we eventually fire him. So show up Tuesday night. Make some noise. The review is scheduled for one of the first things. I’m guessing Walter will chicken out and change the time or date rather than face public scrutiny. This may be your last chance. If these pillars of virtue are allowed to saddle us with Andrews and his elite handpicked cast for another 5 years, you might as well move.

    Sadly, we now have a BOS Chairman who is simply not bright enough to be corrupt. He rides around with his best friend Mark Andrews while Mark tells him how smart he is. Walter, you look like Mark’s hand puppet. The sad thing is that if you watch closely you can see Andrews’ lips moving when Walter speaks.

    Did you ever notice that whenever a citizen, Town Council, Steve or Cara makes a motion or suggests a course of action that would expose or hold Andrews to account, Mark lowers his head? No, he did not choose that moment to check the shine on his shoes. No, he is not ashamed, embarrassed or repentant. He is employing an old Jedi mind trick. He does not want anyone to see him mouthing the words, as Walter says, “no, we don’t need to have a vote on that”, or “no, that subject is not on the agenda”.

    Walter, wasn’t it Jane, Bruce and Brenda who gave us Mark, Ellen and Mike? Then wasn’t it Mark who gave us Rick, Myles, Patty, Paul and Marsha. Do you assume the support you get from Ellen and Mike is real? Could you possibly be so simple minded?

    How many of you were aware that Andrews delayed posting or filling the CEDA director’s job because he and Mike and Ellen were waiting for the one-year time period to expire so they could give the job to Brenda “Extreme”? Wouldn’t that be nice, Brenda, Bruce, Ellen, Mike, Marsha, Myles, Rick, Mark and oh yes, Paul? Has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?

    A couple years back we got rid of perhaps the most ignorant, rude and politically abhorrent BOS chairman in our history. This is the man who is responsible for Andrews and numerous other questionable appointments. At the time, of all the other available candidates who came without Andrews’ baggage, did BS hire Andrews because he recognized a certain moral, legal and ethical flexibility? Maybe in Mark he saw a kindred spirit, or perhaps he simply thought Andrews would do his bidding.

    Imagine our good fortune should we keep Andrews and then get BS back in the next election. How long before dissidents begin having all kinds of problems, including those with the law? I understand some people already are. I remember Don Bliss?

    Right now we have all the justification necessary to terminate Andrews for cause. If we allow the BOS to give him the review I suspect they plan, we lose forever the ability to use anything he’s done to date to terminate him in the future. At the very least, we should fight to not allow the BOS to renew his contract when it expires, but if these morons extend his contract now, we are doomed.