I am posting in response to Mr. Saul Raposo’s letter of February 9th in the Standard Times. Mr. Raposo wonders why the Select Board would take time to inquire about a settled court case. That court case, Bernier and Hickox v. Town of Dartmouth, is the subject of a Public Records Act request to the town. A citizen has made a legitimate request and the records for this case have not been provided in a timely manner as required by the Public Records Act. This is one instance of several of which I am aware where the town has failed to meet its obligations under the Public Records Act. I believe that to be a legitimate area of concern for the Select Board. Additionally in this particular case, the town paid out funds to settle a case against the advice of the Town Counsel and the insurance company which is an odd circumstance at best. If the records have been kept in good order, it is a simple matter to resolve. That does not appear to be the case.
Mr. Raposo goes on to question why the Select Board did not renew Mr. Gagne’s contract. The simple answer is that a majority of the Select Board wants new leadership in the town. Under our Town Charter(MS Word format), the Special Act that created the position of the Executive Administrator, and Massachusetts General Law, that decision is a prerogative of the Select Board.
A better question is ...
...why did Mr. Miller, Mr. Carney, Ms. Dias, and others on a preceding Select Board include automatic renewal language in the contracts of a few town employees? These contracts were not up for renewal at the end of the term of an existing contract, but some were renegotiated 8 months after new contracts had been signed and 28 months before those contracts were up. The automatic renewal clause has the effect of making the contracts perpetual and prevents the Select Board from exercising their prerogative under the Town Charter, section 4-4(webpage), to appoint an Executive Administrator of their choosing.
Several attorneys have commented on the contract renewal clause and felt that it is not in the interest of the town to have that provision. In fact, the Select Board of Miller, Carney, Dias, and others were warned by the attorney who drafted the contract language that it was not a good idea. Attorney Bartulis wrote, “While I have made the requested changes, I want to point out that I am concerned about the indefinite automatic renewals.” Attorney Savastano has advised the Select Board that “It is clearly against the best interest of the Town to allow these employment contracts as currently written, with the renewal clause included, to remain effective in perpetuity.” Attorney Daniel C Perry said in a letter to the Standard Times, “I apologize to Anthony Savastano, whom I respect, for disagreeing with him publicly, but I think it is important to defend the prerogative of the selectmen to ignore contractual arrangements made by their predecessors that are unlawful”. Attorney Greenspan said, “The automatic or self renewal clause contract could be in violation of the Town Charter”. So why was this automatic renewal added to contracts that were not up for renewal? I think that answer is obvious. Mr. Carney said in a letter on December 11, 2008 in the Standard Times, "In fact, the clause was adopted, in part, to preclude an action such as the one currently underway not to renew Mr. Gagne's contract."
Focusing on the financial stability of Dartmouth, as Mr. Raposo recommends, includes making changes to the personnel and structure of the town departments. Unfortunately and to the detriment of the town, the previous board acted to make that more difficult. The irony in this circumstance is that Mr. Raposo sees none when he criticizes the current board for the difficulty created by the former one.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Response to Mr. Raposo's letter
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33 comments:
Saul Raposo doesn't see a lot. He doesn't see how much he, Ray Mederois & Carney wasted on a special town meeting for a badly written recall provision. He doesn't see the relevance of finding out what our previous Select Board did in executive session when attorneys were advising against their decisions. He doesn't see the damage these contracts have done and why they are not in the best interests of the town. He doesn't see why Mr. gagne has to go and the town needs someone who is qualified and not tied in with town employees. He doesn't see why Bob Carney needs to go either. He doesn't see why we need people like Diane Gilbert on the board. He doesn't see why people don't want to pay more taxes even though he doesn't pay property taxes himself. I wonder just what it is he does see?
Record keeping should be a top priority for the EA according to our town charter. Michael Gagne has not done his job in that department. It is the law, not 'if I have time', kind of thing. This idea that Michael Gagne can keep secret any executive minutes he likes is very disturbing. Public information should be just that!
Mr. Raposo obviously doesn't understand the implications of the situation. We have board members who were involved still serving. Why wasn't any of this done in open session? If it is anything like the contracts then we know why. Because it was not in the best interests of the town. I don't want to be oblivious to what town officials are doing or have done in the past.
Saul NAILED IT good JOB SAUL!!!
Saul seems to be a very disturbed individual. Speaking of disturbing individuals, has anyone seen Kevin Lee's website? He is asking children and parents to save his job. He lists what you can do such as writing letters and pratically tells these children what to write. This seems unethical to me and since you access it through the town's website this also seems questionable to me.
People talk about a price of the special TM...hmmm 7,000..not much in comparison to LEGAL guidance on a closed issue that Saul is talking about and also on the issue with Mike's contract where a similar one was already won in favor of the defendant in fall River Talk about wasting MONEY...isnt that calling the kettle BLACK!
Saul, I mean anonymous 12:48. You've got to be kidding!
or even the 20 GRAND to FIND an EA out of ALASKA..hey maybe Dartmouth will hire Sarah PAlin..that would be nice at least she will keep us safe from those Russians she can see from her house
Well Kathleen, I really don't think it will cost too much money to find out what happened in those executive sessions but you really don't want anyone to have that information do you?
7000 dollars that was wasted BECAUSE some people didnt want to stay and a corrupt moderator that rushes through the TM like he is waiting to see a FOTTBALL game
if some people(Walker) would have worked out HIS AMENDMENTS that HE BROUGHT...instead of WASTING EVERYONE"S TIME..there were people there willing to work it OUT but ..that wasnt part of the PLAN!!!!
you want to talk ..find out what happened to WALKER's AMENDMENTS he brought
why bring amendments to a TM if you never had any intentions of letting TM see them !!!!!
LEt's Talk MONEY...7000 TM or 20k for a search firm and more to come for EXTRA LEGAL SERVICES
of all the MONEY spent to the FIRM and to THE ATTY> on behalf of TRIMBLE GILBERT and MICHAUD...7000 is a drop in a bucket
So you want to response to Mr Raposo's letter. I've a better idea. Why not tell the people who you are?? Why don't you tell the people where the monies came from to pay off the law suit? Maybe, it's because most of it came from the water/sewer enterprise system. Why did you sue the town/Bernier& Hickok's? Your one to find fault with revealing SB executive minutes, talk about the kettle calling the stove black. When you were a SB member, why didn't you stand and be counted on the Joe Ricardo issue? When you were on the DPW what happened to the executive SB minutes on the Burgess property? Who voted to spend 500,000 thousand dollars to buy water/property rights on the Burgess property, when a hydrologist reported no water on the property and all the surrounding property had been subdivided.
Post says that someone wants the records on Bernier-Hickox and can't get them. That's a problem, don't you think?
TM didnt even get a chance to see the amendments..because of a corrupt moderator
Saul didn't want to change anything. He stood up and said the provision was good as it was. Why didn't Saul propose something that didn't need five amendments in the first place? He wanted to bring this to town meeting and have someone else write it for him and then cries when town meeting thinks it should go through the proper channels.
Thats funny because I remember Saul stating that he had ONE amendement....you guys have a short term memory
The post above labeled Barry 1:01pm was not written by me.
That's right he did have one amendment. He did the math wrong on the first provision and he then needed an amendment to fix it. Didn't realize that 50 X 10 = 500.
Saul Raposo's only claim to fame is for proposing a poorly written recall provision that was so bad it couldn't get past the first motion at town meeting. Then to top it off he and Ray Mederois want to blame everyone else for their foolishness. I notice Mr. Carney has managed to stay out of the fray and let them take the heat. Doesn't that tell you anything Saul? If I were you I would want people to forget about that folly as quickly as possible. I wouldn't still be crying about it.
Hello! Town meeting was made aware by the moderator that there were amendments available. Fully aware of this, the majority still voted to indefinitely postpone because they didn't want to stay and work it out. This was work that should have been done before it was brought before town meeting if not by those proposing it then by a charter commission. Foolish attempt for purely political reasons.
Yeah...20 minutes..that is the way to run it..then SLAM the GAVEL so quick and ignore all hands for a teller count..utterly pathetic..and poorly run..inside job....inside job
Get over it Saul! Being a sore loser has crossed the point into obsession.
revealing the trith isnt being a sore loser..there is a right and wrong way to run a TM and that was the wrong way
Saul are you now an expert on town meeting? Are you even a member??? How many meetings have you attended?
How, pray tell, do you know that you are responding to Saul? I don't see any identifiers on most of these comments.
Saul is very easy to identify. He screams nasty things about Diane Gilbert and Joe Michaud. He uses lots of exclamation points and capitals. He repeats the same thing over and over about the same topics. He never lends anythng significant to the conversation or any facts. And he's always wrong.
Come on Saul! Be a man and admit you screwed up. Maybe you can then retain some self respect. Blaming Mr. Walker is just making you look more foolish. Own up to your own mistakes and bad decisions.
Re Saul's letter, It is the responsibility of the EA to produce Executive session minutes to the public if they so request as long as any legal findings have been completed.The reason Gagne does not want to give out those minutes and others is because they were not done in the best interest of the town.
If MILLER et al. had not signed those contracts, Dartmouth would not be spending any money on lawyers fees. Atty. Bartulus knew what he was saying when he said, THIS IS NOT IN THE BEST INTEREST OF DARTMOUTH. Boy was he right!
The only sad part of this whole story is that Gagne was acting in a self serving way, screw the town, I've got my contract. He also gave them to those under him. Dartmouth's Club 8
People asking for them have been waiting from almost one year up to 3 or 4 years.
Revealing the truth? Saul doesn't want to spend money on transparency but he wants to reveal the truth about a legimate televised town meeting. Huh? It is really pathetic when a Select Board is criticized because they are advocating for and seeking transparency.
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