Are the Selectmen control freaks?

Ah, the links to the selectmen's minutes finally work! In reviewing the minutes from recent meetings, we came across the minutes from the April 23, 2007 meeting. The one in which Jack was insistent upon reprimanding Teddy for refusing to participate in an illegal meeting. These minutes are available on the Town of Atkinson website, under the selectmen tab. Here are the salient points for our discussion;

"The written reprimand was read. Mr. Sullivan disagreed with the reprimand noting that the violation was neither clean nor obvious. Mr. Sullivan expressed his view that the non-public session of April 9th was a policy discussion and therefore not covered under statute. Mr. Stewart was, therefore, not guilty of insubordination."

"Mr. Childs read from the statute that defines the Board’s authority over the Road Agent (RA) noting that the RA reports to and takes lawful direction from the Board. Mr. Childs noted that directives of the Board are often ignored and that it is wrong and it was his feeling that Mr. Stewart could not just walk out of a discussion because he disagreed with the Board."

" Mr. Stewart replied that the Board could lawfully direct the RA, but that the Board acted unlawfully by changing issues in the non-public session and therefore he was not guilty of insubordination. Mr. Sapia explained that the non-public session was available to discuss personnel issues so that the reputations of those involved did not suffer. The April 9th non-public session was to discuss Mr. Stewart’s recommendation of a candidate."

Now what Mssrs. Childs and Sapia neglect to tell everyone, is that after discussing Mr. Stewart's recommendation, they changed the topic to whether or not the town needed an assistant road agent. At that point, legally, itbecame a policy discussion and Mr. Stewart was correct not to have anything to do with it. A personell mater deals with a specific person, such as hiring, firing, promoting, or demoting an employee. A discussion of a position within the ton is a policy matter and should have been discussed in public. The question is why does Mr. Sapia fear being as open and ..... um.... honest? (probably not the right word given the protagonist) in public meetings as in private? Here is another little piece of the open meetings law that has escaped Mr. Sapia's attention many times over his reign as selectman, The board can not go into non-public session to avoid harm to a member of the boards reputation. Non-public meetings for an issue likely to harm a reputation is designed to protect the individual not the board. Sorry Jack!

Now we move on to the next in the long list of reprimands that selectman Sapia feels are necessary because these people did not genuflect before his ring, the cable camerapeople, you will remember the article a few weeks ago about selectmen Sapia's ire with a camera person, Well the reason he wants her written up is because when he got up to follow Teddy out into the hallway to ream him, she swung the camera around to catch it. Bear in mind that he had not recessed the meeting, as he is now claiming, the meeting was in full swing, and again, anything he had to say to the road agent should have been in the public meeting in that context, but no; he tried to have words off camera, and they were caught for the town to see, so in Mr. Sapia's eyes she now needs to be reprimanded and the Cable TV director needs to establish firm rules about when cameras and mics are on and off. Here is the quote from the minutes;

"Mr. Sullivan re-addressed the reprimand issue again by suggesting that there was a pattern of abuse of employees. Mr. Sullivan held up two letters from the Town Clerk. Mr. Sullivan noted that he had heard that letters of reprimand were being prepared against two cable employees and that the TA and Mr. Sapia had spoken with the Cable Director. The TA noted that he had spoken with Ms. Jordan and asked that she prepare a set of standard operating procedures for cable employees that establish guidelines for when microphones are on and off during meetings as well as camera stills during recesses."

We will leave Jack's disgusting treatment of the Town Clerk for another article. If only the Atkinson Academy Mom's whom Jack actively courts could see him as those of us who work with him do.