Once upon a time, there was a DOR (Department of Revenue) Report.
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That incidentally, should probably be repeated since it would appear little progress has be made.
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That DOR report was requested by the Finance Committee, who seem to have done the best they could addressing the town's finances.
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The DOR notified the FinCom that the Board of Selectmen were required to request the review.
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Chairman Wayne Perkins, duly embarrassed by his oversight and being upstaged by the FinCom was forced to require the request by the BOS.
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The report itself contained many self-evident recommendations that a town government novice, such as myself, could recognize were significant money savers, silly things like quarterly tax billing, a 5 year budget projection.
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The report commented on the Town's failure to employ 'technology' to its fullest. PTWS maybe?
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The report also recommended that committees post their meeting minutes on the PTWS.
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Remember the whining at the DOR hearing about how the BOS had no control over committees?
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It might seem they have control over a committee they appoint, of which there are several including CRAC.
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Although the PTWS is user hostile, have there been any additional meeting minutes posted?
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The subject again reared its ugly head at tonight's BOS meeting since the public is uninformed without attending those meetings.
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The subject of Executive Sessions was again questioned.
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This is what Public Records Guide has written about Executive Sessions [Middleboro Board of Selectmen 3-9-09 ] --
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Minutes of executive session meetings must be reviewed and released regularly and promptly. Executive session minutes must be released to the public as soon as the stated purpose for the executive session protection has ceased.
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When the issue was raised during this evening's Middleboro Board of Selectmen's meeting that since the 2007 Executive Meeting Minutes were recently released, when would the meeting minutes of 2008 be released? The response by the Town Manager, Charles Cristello was that he had decided the meeting minutes would be released annually, right before the town election in April.
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So ANNUALLY must constitute 'regularly and promptly.'
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Thanks for that clarification!
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Gavel Queen (who gavelled any dissent or opposition to silence regardless of how polite), Selectwoman Marsha Brunelle and star of Sick And Tired Of This Crap assures us that nothing secret is going on with the Tribe. The BOS must have made a resolution since they negotiated a backroom deal with Glenn Marshall.
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Just put that gavel back in her hand and she won't have to make those outrageous claims!
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We can all sleep well knowing that we have Marsha's word!
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I wonder.....Would we keep re-visiting the same issues if they were resolved?
31 comments:
Charlie can't read or what?
Cristello thinks he can lie on camera?
Wasn't Hingham paying attention?
What is up with Cristello lying to residents.
Cristello is the defined point person with the Tribe, yet last week Mr. Frawley ask him DIRECTLY, have you spoke to anyone from the Tribe? And Mr. Cristello said NO.
Tonight however he now said he has, and that Mr. Frawley was not clear enough?
Come on Mr. Harvard Grad? What part of "Mr. Cristello have you" didn't You get?
Why is the Middleboro BOS and now the Town Mananger working in secret?
Not communicating the goings on in my dictinoary is sneaky.
Mr. Solomini is right why can't the TM or why dind't he inform the BOS and or The pubilic of this meeting?
He need s to be watched. Lets see where he tries to move the $107k from the illigal trash tax.
In sum,
Cristello is clearly a liar.
Does Cristello have problems with his memory?
I liked Fohlin!
Open. Transparent. Informed. Believed in keeping residents informed. Believed in keeping BOS informed. Posted Town Manager's reports online.
Cristello? After tonight, I have my doubts.
Nice jobs guys in exposing what seems to be going on. I don't like it.
Annual Executive Meeting Minutes? I really don't think so, Mr. Cristello!
My letters are written and ready to mail tomorrow to the address below.
This REEKS !
Office of the State Secretary
Public Records Division
One Ashburton Place, 17th Floor
Boston, Massachusetts 02108
Plymouth County District Attorney’s Office
Mary Lee, Assistant District Attorney
32 Belmont Street
P.O. Box 1665
Brockton, MA 02301
Office of Attorney General
Martha Coakley
One Ashburton Place
Boston, MA 02108
Office of the Attorney General
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001
Secretary of the Department of the Interior
Department of the Interior
1849 C Street, N.W.
Washington DC 20240
Bureau of Indian Affairs
Department of the Interior
1849 C Street, NW
Washington, D.C. 20240
Massachusetts Ethics Commission
One Ashburton Place
John W. McCormack Building
Room 619 Boston, MA 02108
One night the bos was discussing the Mboro Friends Halloween Party in the town hall auditorium. Abomb was chairmen made a comment about discussing town business at the mtg. Marsha blurted without hesitation that she arived late there would have ben a quorim otherwise private meeting more than a quorim present just like that landmark case about open mtg law some things never change til voters make it change
no transperensy with this bd
Cristello is meeting secretly with the Tribe to circumvent Oepn Meeting Laws and then denies it?
Nice work Charlie!
How many Selectmen were present? Does the whole Board know about it?
Another liar for Town Manager? Just what the town needs. Bad enough the Board is lying.
When was the vote taken to make Charlie the Point Man? Did I miss that vote and discussion? Are the BOS polling now? Hmmmm....?
Cristello lost all credibility with me last night. You just can't lie and think people aren't watching, Charlie!
When you look at the minutes from last week I am sure it will show Al's question. Right? Or we could buy a tape for $36.
This is like a soap opera?
It is really Glenn Marshall, with real good plastic surgery.
We need to get our tribe in order too.
Regularly and Promptly = Annually at Harvard.
What school did you go to?
You're right. This is the lazy board that is allowing the tm to run amok. How 'bout those other meetings with the tm? Circumventing open meeting? Is anyone watching?
Sleaze and secrecy rules!
Plastic surgery?
Get me that man's name!
$36 for a tape?
Or maybe a competent IT Director could do online archives?
How much would the town save by outsourcing the IT Department? It might seem that we would get a better product.
The IT Director ignored an offer to produce a better town web site FREE --- FREE OF CHARGE TO THE TOWN AND THE TAXPAYERS. The Town is filled with those 'computer geek' folks who can do that kind of stuff. Why was it ignored?
Mushroom Farming????
I'm not sure you can defend the argument that the Gavel Queen made about the tapes = official records unless they are readily available. Besides, where in the Public Records Statute is that included?
It would seem that if you want to propose that the "tapes" are the official records, the law needs to be changed or the challenged thinking of the BOS needs to be changed.
You can't "sort" the current BOS meeting minutes (unless you download them into your computer) because of the primitive PTWS. How would you sort tapes?
The bottom line seems to be ---
Public Records need to be available and they're not.
Stop picking on the Board. They have better things to do. Why, Mimi was out planting the town hall lawn just today!
You really can't be serious about Roger doing ANYTHING can you?
He's pretended this long and no one caught on why stop?
Not bad for a job he created by volunteering when he was out of work.
Incompetence reigns in the 'boro!
Never forget that!
This needs to change. We vote and there are 6 votes in the household. We have a few friends. Maybe we won't change the election but we're disgusted about this. The minutes of the meetings stink. If we go on vacation we're supposed to pay $36 because Roger for his $100k still hasnt figured out the internet? the PTWS as you call it is just that. Enuff! Chrsitelo is more of the same. Damn search comitee didnt give good choices - yeah, the jerk from Mansfild that Sacket liked? Jerk from Brocton who was unqualified? I can just about guess who was on the dearch comitee - old men from the past.
Time for change!
We have had enuff!
I was sick and tired of Marsha's crap before last night. What do you call it when you're more than sick and tired of the crap from the Gavel Queen? You got that one right. Condescending?
Marsha, why do you even bother?
Oh, Roger's job, I forgot!
BTW, how's that tv he charged to the town working?
There really are more important things than this. With these people nothing will change. It's time to refuse to vote for an incumbent.
Abomb helped elect this board. If you like it thank him. If you dont remember to vote on April 4th. Vote absentee if you're not around.
Boy did you get the FMs riled nice job
If anyone has watched the sectretary take minutes they would understand why she needs to review the video for the finished product. Maybe she should have been given a 'typing' test when she was hired. Reviewing the video doesn't seem to help her.
If nothing is made public nothing has to be defended. town meeting aprove somthing like $10 million for water upgrades. Has anyone noticed that old centre st had water run TO a new subdivision? Why
is that odd? isnt that the subdivision that's all wetlands and they have to build in a cluster ? was it a faver?
Has anyone heard the radio commercials for "Dragon Naturally Speaking"? You talk and the computer types. The web link is
http://www.dragonvoicerecognition.com/
Also, anyone can record any open meeting. This includes voice, and I'm sure visual, as long as it's not disruptive. A small camera on a tripod, with prior notification, would do the trick.
The minutes are not the secretarys fault. If you watch the 'cheap seats' episode Spataro explains how the board doesn't like three pages of minutes, just short and sweet, nothing relevant that can come back to haunt them. That's why no public copies of the tapes!
VOTE!
VOTE!
The laws regarding public meetings clearly indicate that recording or filming public meetings is legal and permissable.
To the poster who commented to inform --
That isn't the issue.
We record each meeting and were not retaining them because the meeting minutes at once time were fairly accurate.
That is no longer the case.
What we have found is that when you read the meeting minutes, there are striking omissions, more egregious than the one Mike Solimini questioned.
The written minutes serve an important purpose in preserving the historical meeting content.
They also fulfill a legal requirement.
Marsha Brunelle indicated that the video tapes of the meetings constituted the 'public record.'
If you can find that portion of the law, please post it.
Creativity is not part of the law.
If we are to accept that video tapes are the 'public record,' there are requirements to make them readily available, at a reasonable price and they need to be archived. There are a number of other requirements I won't delve into, but the BOS is under an obligation to make provisions for the 'public record' if they are to pretend the video tapes fulfill that requirement.
It would also seem that they have to be archived with the Town Clerk and so on.
While the issue at present is the BOS meeting minutes, do you know how you retrieve or review meeting minutes of any other town committee?
The DOR Report recommended that meeting minutes be posted on the PTWS. Never done.
This isn't to target a BOS that has failed to move into the 20th Century, never mind the 21st, but rather to remind voters that we aren't moving forward, we aren't solving problems and creating greater transparency.
It's time we did so.
Now you want to tell me Cristello wasn't chummy with Perkins, Healy or one of the other loosers in this town that have been porkin us for years? Was so obvious.
if Spataro likes short minutes maybe we should give him even shorter minutes from the Cheap Seats! Why does he even run? oh rental property same as mimi
Pat runs for pension credits
Marsha runs to protect Rogers job
when will it be time to change?
this is the bored adam elected
all rise and say thank you adam
ya got the monkeys reading the laws nice job! God help us now theyll be informed
what makes anyone think Adam elected the board? he did not.
Marsha was on the board, long before him. Steve ran on his own before Adam. Pat ran at the same time as Adam and MiMi (well, she is just MiMi) with her own ethics(lack) , intergrity(lack), power hungry and individual agenda. She was nice at the beginning and now look at her. Mean and vicious.
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