Gracie fundraiser Wednesday night

Just a reminder that Mr. Gracie will have a fundraising supper Wednesday night at Shawmut Diner on Hathaway Road. Tickets are $15 and are available at the door.

I will be attending to support Mr. Gracie's candidacy and I hope that you will too. Frank has extensive knowledge of the town's finances from serving on the Budget and Revenue Task Force, Tax Classification Committee, and Privatization Study Group. I think he has a lot to contribute to the board.
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Town Meeting member vacancies

Refer to this Curt Brown blog post listing Town Meeting vacancies by precinct. It is too late to get on the ballot but a write in campaign of your friends and family is usually enough to get elected. Of course, you have to attend the Town Meeting too. Give it some thought, Town Meeting is June 2nd

See you there!
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The Foggy Dew- Sinead O'Connor with the Chieftains

I love a good republican song.
For the great Gaels of Ireland
Are the men that God made mad,
For all their wars are merry,
And all their songs are sad.
You Tube embed after the jump


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Diane Gilbert Website

Ms. Gilbert has a website where she has posted information about herself and her positions on issues in Dartmouth. The site can be found at this link or by cutting and pasting this URL to your browser, http://dianefordartmouth.com/Page_1_.html
The result of this town election is important given the candidates and their positions on issues.Ms. Gilbert, along with Mr. Michaud and me, ...has been working to change the culture and functioning of the town departments. I hope that we can continue on that course after April.
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Contracting out is not new.

Did you know federal government requires that departments and agencies of the national government allow private companies to compete to provide the services that government employees provide?
The federal departments must request bid proposals for services although the government employees may also submit...

...a bid to continue to provide the service. Lower bidder gets to do the work. Google "Federal A76 competition requirements" or look at the link here. This procedure has saved billions of dollars for the federal government. I don't see why it would not work for municipal government as well.
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The never ending story (email edition)

Today's edition consists of email between the Dartmouth paralegal and Attorney Bartulis and his first attempt at contract language leading up to the Feb 9th meeting in Dartmouth which I posted about here.
Apparently the town had some communication problems which prevented the emails and contract language from getting through until Feb 7th. I posted the Feb 6 emails here, the proposed contract language here, and the Feb 7 emails here
Even at this time, Att'y Bartulis was warning that ...

...this language was unusual. He says on Feb 7,

"While I am usually in the position of affording management, not the employees, with the most protections, and while I am not usually asked to bind a Town with more restrictive contractual language, since you have indicated that the Select Board wants to accommodate your concerns regarding funding, just cause protections, negotiable wages and job security, I have drafted some clauses which you and the Board might find useful to meet your shared objectives."

Another interesting point is that the contract provision requiring the EMPLOYEE to give the TOWN 90 days notice if the employee wants to end the agreement didn't make it into the final wording.
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Library trustee pens opinion letter

Ms. Lorraine Carey has a letter to the editor in today's Standard Times here Ms. Carey is on the Dartmouth Library Board of Trustees. I am not sure what facts, positive suggestions or constructive criticism that she is looking for. What has been asked ...

... by the Select Board and Finance Committee is that the Library Board of Trustees issue a Request For Proposal (RFP) to LSSI and any other interested parties to determine if contracting out library services could save the town money. We don't know what the result of that RFP would be, so we lack the facts needed to make a decision on whether or not contracting out the services is a viable option or not. THe Board of Trustees had apparently made the decision that it is not. I submit that they don't have enough information to determine that without issuing the RFP.
Curt Brown also had a brief article in today's paper that the Trustees met in executive session to discuss non-union contracts.
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Heart Rocks

The Wilson sisters rock - Barracuda by Heart
You Tube embed after the jump

Heart Barracuda
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The never ending story (Paralegal involvement)

UPDATE - I have fixed the link to the 12/21/05 letter
One curious aspect of the story is the involvement of the municipal paralegal throughout. In the packet of materials that I received, most of the correspondence was from or about the paralegal. I am more than a little puzzled why so much time and attention was devoted to the contracts and work situation of this one employee. The correspodence with the earliest date in the packet is a memo from the paralegal to the Executive Administrator where she appears to be inventing a new job since the Town Counsel no longer needed her services or she no longer wanted to be paralegal, I can't tell which it is and have no first hand knowledge...

... of any of the circumstances involved. This memo and many of the others just seem to me to have an odd tone about them. The May 30, 2003 memo can be seen here
It appears to me from the correspondence that the paralegal was unable to convince the Personnel Board or Finance Committee that her job was new and different and warranted a higher salary.
I do know from personal experience some of the next part of the story. As a Town Meeting member in 2005, I was somewhat perplexed to find an article on the warrant which was sponsored by the paralegal and sought to reclassify her job salary range from the one published in the bylaws to negotiable. The article failed at Town Meeting. That ends my personal knowledge of the story.
Which brings us to the next two pieces of correspondence, a letter on November 17,2005 asking for permission to have Attorney Bartulis draft new contract language for her contract. Handwritten on the bottom of the page it says, Permission granted by unanimous vote of the Board on 11/21/05
Next is a letter to Attorney Bartulis from the paralegal dated December 21,2005, While the letter says it is regarding several positions, it seems to me to be about only one, the paralegal. It is also odd that the Select Board is trying to find a way to bypass the Town Meeting and bylaws if in fact that is what happened.
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State and municipalities

Jack Spillane's article in today's Standard Times on the relationship between the state legislators and local towns points out a real problem. They don't communicate with each other.
I hope that the towns and legislators can get together on this Thursday at Town Hall and really listen to each other. I think the towns have legitimate concerns about unfunded mandates ...

... but I am hopeful that the session will not turn into a long gripe session. If the towns can present not only their concerns but what they see as solutions or remedies, the session will be more productive.
Frank Gracie, who is a candidate for Select Board, made a good suggestion to me on a way to find common ground for possible regional solutions. If each town would come with a list of the top three budget items that they will struggle to fund next year, a comparison of the list may identify areas for co-operative effort.
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