It was another disgusting display of our Trumpian local governance this week when the aldermen voted down the possibility of having more than one citizen representative on the Water & Sewer Committee, hailing their "efficiency" and hired "experts" as being the only actually qualified individuals to participate in determining this area that is of critical importance to all Melrose households. While there are many other city committees in which a number of citizens are appointed and are allowed to take part in the governing process, this critically important committee is being explicitly shut off from more active citizen participation. As usual, Infurna and the other bloviators referenced the primary need for "efficiency" (Margaret Driscoll's favorite shut-down rationale for her so-called "public engagement" practices--always "best," of course).
New Bulletin to BOA: Most citizens, especially seniors in large housing complexes and residents in condos are anything but happy with their Water/Sewer rates, and for darn strong reasons. But this Board of Aldermen does not want to hear it. They stated that citizens can communicate with their ward representatives. End of story, though it shouldn't be.
Mr. Mroz wrote a most articulate piece about this in last week's Weekly News. His suggestions were summarily dismissed by this summarily disrespectful board. Instead we are to believe that all is great and wonderful, just as our Liar-in-Chief would have us believe about anything and everything that emits from his tweeting fingers. Melrose could give HIM a lesson or two in how to suppress citizen engagement, because Melrose officials have been doing this for a great deal longer and with great EFFICIENCY. Sick! Sad! and most of all, Shameful.
I think Julie DeLillo could beat Margolis or Zwirko. If she runs in her own Ward Frank Wright could also lose.
Mr. Mroz should run against GI and get rid of that blowhard once and for all. He has the knowledge, grit, work ethic, and it would be fantastic for the BOA to have his voice embedded in it, whether they like it or not.
JD and CKK should run at-large and knock it out of the park as a team, with Julie D running in her ward or at-large, also. With those 4, along with Monica, finally something good could get done. Better yet, one of them should run for mayor and banish Dough Boy, who has long, long outstayed his welcome and only gets more arrogant and Trumpish the longer he sits there.
The SC just needs a large dumpster for all of them. There is literally no hope for that body the way it stands now. Each one of them has their own brand of heinous awfulness, with Kellyanne Driscoll standing at the top of the stink pile.
The aldermen got confused with their own rules. They started to vote for one citizen on the committee. Some wanted more. In the end they voted for none.
Wright's motion right out of the box to approve the order, with Infurna as a second, effectively shut off all possibility of any further discussion of adding any more citizens(Robert's Rules. Because eight votes were required for passage, th0se who wanted more than one and voted no caused the order to fail. I believe the final tally was 7 for and 5 against.
Personally, my feeling is that there should be as many citizens on the committee as there are city employees. If there's only one or two, it will be easy for the city employees to overrule them at every turn, and the city will go right on doing what it's been doing - screwing the ratepayers.
Someone will have to file a new order that includes multiple private citizens, but because that also will require 8 votes for approval, the lapdogs who voted yes for only one will defeat that order as well, and the city will get exactly the result it wants - no citizen involvement at all in the process. Even though it's probably wasted effort, I give credit to those whose votes caused the original order to fail. It was lip service designed to keep the public out of the process.
One good thing - it's now crystal clear who the aldermen are that willing to let this unfair system continue to screw the ratepayers. There are seven of them.
Which BOA member will show the courage to represent their constituents and make sure that citizen voters are represented on the Water and Sewer Committee? Time to stand and deliver phony balconies or you will likely be opposed in the upcoming election. Wright and Infurna really need to be ousted!
I wasn't blaming those who voted no on the original order. Far from it. I would have voted no also. They recognized that having only one citizen member was the same thing as having none, as that person would have been outvoted at every turn by all the city employees on the committee. It would have been exactly like the SC when CKK was the only one there looking out for us.
As far as I'm concerned, those voting no said "f*** you to the rest of them, and I'm fine with that. In this case, one person CANNOT make a difference, because the rules are rigged against it.
I would wholeheartedly support Mr Taymor and Mr Mroz for the committee, both more knowledgeable than anyone except for the city engineer about this issue - certainly more knowledgeable than the City Auditor, under whose so-called "oversight" the city has been screwing us for years. In his case I wouldn't let him anywhere near water and sewer - have you forgotten the mess he created in Plymouth before leaving in disgrace and then being hired by the Doughboy?
One other thing - I am really disappointed in Ms. Lemmerman. I thought she was better than that. Apparently she's too caught up in the councillor/alderman and dreamcatcher issues to pay much attention to this. I am NOT disappointed in Mr Wright, though, because he's performing exactly as I expected him to. He is a total waste of skin.
There is a committee to review the charter. They should include a recall provision so the City can get rid of dead wood like Frank Wright. Does anyone know why he stays on the Board? Does he get a better pension adding Melrose pay to his Somerville pay? He'll probably saddle Melrose with his health insurance when it comes up, too.
He gets a pension from working in Somerville. The Melrose pay adds bonus dollars to his retirement.
Yeah, on the Dolan....
“No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.”
H.L. Mencken
"There's a sucker born every minute."
P.T. Barnum
That this bunch of just plain terrible school committee & BOA members have stayed in office says nothing good about the idiotic Melrose public. Maybe it's just as well that citizens' voices are continuously squelched when these so-called "representatives" indicate the overall caliber of citizenry. These cookie-cutter mostly college-educated dummy clones may as well be backwater Alabamans in their lack of critical thinking abilities and eagerness to embrace foolishness and backwardness. When the few articulate and genuinely caring individuals come forward to speak or serve, this community does nothing to support them, and in fact only compounds the ugliness heaped on by the status quo DolTrumpian administration that has iron-fisted this community for 15 years. Not even GuilFoil can repaint this mess as anything other than backwards.