Friday, February 19, 2016

No Confidence... who has the right to say so?



At a meeting I attended the other night, a senior TMM told the group that Town Meeting does not have the right to vote on a no confidence resolution. Which begs the question, how does Town Meeting hold anyone in the executive branch or any Town employee accountable for their actions or the lack of actions. We know that there is a police officer who killed an innocent man and one who is being investigated by the AG’s office for theft of money in the evidence room, both still on the job. We also know that there are 2 firefighters who are still on the job after being charged with domestic violence and a departed fire chief who has never addressed the sick time/overtime abuse. We know that the BOH fiasco was started with the hiring of a Director (long gone) who was pals with the Town Manger. We know that the VSO stood in opposition to the POW MIA flags being flown at the Memorial building. We also know that Town Meeting voted to have Government Access TV produce and air only government meetings, which has been ignored. Lastly, we know that Town Meeting shot down all the mean-spirited zoning by laws regarding the medical marijuana dispensary and as we know now, those votes were ignored by the BOS, Town Manger and planning board administration. So if Town Meeting can’t ask for a no confidence vote… who can?

1 Comments:

At February 24, 2016 at 9:57 AM , Blogger Jim Pillsbury said...

Despite the fact that 2 widows of deceased Veterans who were waiting for their bronze burial plaques for over a year and the amount of Chapter 115 benefit money owed to the Town (between 16 and 35K), our VSO has dodged a bullet. It appears that Town Meeting may not be able to show displeasure with a Town employee in a resolution of no confidence.

In the bigger picture I wonder how disciplinary action is taken by management when employee's break the law or act in ways that jeopardize our Town's moral standards. Last night at TM, viewers watched as the wagons surrounded the VSO. Defending his poor judgement and claiming he has done a great job for the veterans in Town, while proclaiming the VSO's resume is the reason he does his job so well. Note, there was no mention of the VSO's HR experience, but only that he was picked for the Green Berets.

But he is not alone and while the defenders of Town Meeting rejected the notion that Town Meeting has a say in an employee's poor performance, perhaps a strong mayor could be the advocate for a higher moral standard that Town Meeting and the Executive Branch can't seem to enforce.

 

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