The offer to SMOC
For those who have followed this quagmire our elected officials have gotten us into.. the short story is SMOC can continue it's lawsuit against the Town on discrimination charges, among others things. We have already spent 750,000 in legals fee's and there's no telling what the BOS have planned for the future. The fact that they even have a say in this is mind blowing. One way or the other, it seems very likely, a jury will find Framingham did indeed willfully engage in illegal activity and just as likely, this Town will suffer in reputation and monetary damages.
Herb Chasen has been working diligently to try to negotiate a deal, but at a meeting early this week with SMOC, it's painfully clear, the Town has nothing to offer. At the meeting, I asked Mr. Cuddy and Mr. Desiletes to ask the board of directors at SMOC one question: will SMOC drop the suite if all of those named in the suite who are elected officials, resign. Mr. Cuddy stated he will get back to me after the board meeting and if they say yes, I would propose asking the ALL the residents in this Town, should we continue to spend more money on leagl fees, possible fines and damage to our reputaion by continuing to defend our side, or ask those who got us in this trouble to resign, thus stopping the law suit?
I'm interested in knowing what our readers think of this idea and how you would vote.
posted by Jim Pillsbury @ 10:47 AM
10 Comments
10 Comments:
Hey it does not take a rocket scientist to know that we are wrong here and need to do something big to fix this mess. I say ask them all to resign, and if they say no, then force them out.
If we remove every person named in the suit, we will basically wipe out Framingham’s governing body. If that is the route we, as a town, decide to take, then we need to have a plan for how we will rule ourselves both long and short term when this happens. I support the idea, but the truth is in details and I don’t see any details on what would happen if we do this. Any insight Jim?
Reasonable suggestion Jim. Lets hope they listen to you.
I would vote for that idea. I can't believe the selectmen have not done the right thing and resigned. I would have a lot more respect for them if they had.
Sounds like a viable solution to me. I would vote for it. Thanks for putting it forward.
What I want to know is why Town Counsel has not advised the town to remove any named party in the lawsuit from public office? What do we have a town counsel for? Glad you had the guts to stand up and say publicly what all of us have been thinking privately.
Get rid of them. What other options do we have?
I think the people named in the suit deserve our support, but I don't think they deserve our money. THey made mistakes, any of us can do that. But I don't expect others to pay for my mistakes and they should not expect the people of Framingham to pay for theirs.
Who is this Chasen guy anyway? And on whose authority is he negotiating for the town? We better make sure we are not misrepresnting anything being said at these meetings because if we do, SMOC will file another law suit against us so fast our heads will spin.
This group of citizens are not represented by lawyers and do not speak on behalf on anyone except for those individuals in Town that want a resolution to the law suite.
We break no laws by asking questions. We just want to try to see if anything would stop the madness, stop the further deterioration of relationships this Town has with everyone, including social services and non-profits.
IF.. SMOC were to agree to drop the lawsuit if all who are elected, resign, we could do the following:
Ask the residents of this Town, whether it's time to become a city form of government or stay Town Meeting. Whichever the outcome, run a special Town wide election before Jan 1, for either replacements who have resigned, or a Mayor with precinct councilors.
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