Martha Grover has sunk Melrose to a new low.
She's always played the shrew but she used to badmouth and insult others to her friends and others who could stomach her.She goes to school committee and now the paper gushing nonsense about Driscoll and attacking Kourkoumelis at the same time.
You people are like hens in a henhouse. And you dare to accuse her of sinking to a new low? I think these awful gossiping posts have pretty much sunk this message board to a new low - which I didn't think was even possible.
You reap what you sow. Martha is now experiencing what her boss has come to know.
Did your 3rd grade teacher not teach you that just because someone else is doing what you consider to be wrong, that does not give you the right to do something wrong yourself? You are stooping to 3rd grade playground behavior. It truly is a new low.
I applaud Martha Grover for two things the Clown Patrol on Melrose Messages doesn't have the stones to do:
1) Go to a meeting and speak publicly on the record
2) Put an opinion in the paper and sign her name to it.
If the clowns on Melrose Messages don't understand that most rational people in Melrose who are paying attention are sick and tired of CKK and the GM show you are twice as ignorant as you appear.
Follow Martha's lead. Go to a meeting and speak publicly, advocate for a candidate, sign your names to a letter. Its how you actually accomplish things.
Oh MG "accomplished" plenty, all right. She did nothing good for herself, however. She showed the true colors of an entire constituent group and their elected officials who sat there and allowed her to do what would have been ruled out of order had it been anyone else. She had "stones" but was clearly missing a lot of other things.
...maybe so, but still much more than the mewling cowards of the MM clown patrol are willing to do. I bet her candidates and positions carry the day in the November election...then you clowns can whine anonymously all about it for the next 2 years.
In addition to watching the public comment period on MMTV, I also just read the opinion piece from Grover and several things stand out, other than my disgust:
The Weekly News neglected to fact-check Ms. Grover's false allegations relating to Carrie K.
Ms. Grover did not properly disclose that she is a city employee, that she is beholden to the Mayor of Melrose (a School committee member), who created a city job for her only three short years ago, and whose office is spitting distance from the Mayor's.
Ms. Grover violated the School Committee's public comment regulations by personally attacking Carrie K as well as other citizens of this community who speak during public comment, and ironically, pay her salary.
K Thorpe neglected her duties as SC chair by not gaveling Ms. Grover to order as required by the SC's Public Comment rules and should publicly apologize for, once again, violating the public's trust as an elected official. Another School Committee member should have stepped in to stop this nastiness but none did (are you surprised?)
Ms. Grover's boss was conveniently absent from the SC meeting, knowing this was a clear ethics violation.
Classic Clown patrol maneuvering. Bozo the clown starts slandering the Mayor by claiming he has a drinking problem, while Chuckles the crown cries about an alleged personal "attack". Give me a break. The hypocrisy of the bozo brigade is beyond entertaining. I read the letter, it was an opinion about the behavior of an elected public official, delivered professionally, in person, by a member of the public who declared her name and address before she spoke.
MM is the slander capital of Melrose, specializing in personal attacks, delivered anonymously, by a bunch of mewling cowards.
Don't cry when a member of the public has the courage do what the bozos are afraid to do. Try getting off your pathetic @sses and doing the same thing.
And yet another new low by the poster above....[:-|]
From the Melrose School Committee webpage:
The following rules apply to Public Comment.....Improper conduct and/or remarks will not be allowed. Defamatory or abusive remarks are always out of order. If a speaker persists in improper conduct or remarks, the Chairman may terminate that individual’s privilege of address. Speakers may offer such objective criticisms of the school operations and programs as concern them, but in public session the Committee will not hear personal complaints of school personnel nor against any member of the school community.
MSC first vote 8/20/13 MSC second vote 8/27/13
Apparently, the rules don't apply to KT and the anti-transparency bullies when the ruling party targets those who have questions they don't care to answer.
The letter said: "I strongly disagree with Ms. Kourkoumelis, the former Finanace and Facilities Chair, who repeatedly criticizes the process this year but who made no effort to conduct any outreach whatsoever beyond the minimum requirements to the public, parents, PTO's, Site Councils or others to invite them to participate."
First off, How is this a personal attack? After hearing some of the things that public speakers have said at that microphone over the years, I find it laughable that people are looking at the rule book over this. Criticism of SC members is fair play, even if you disagree with the criticism.
Secondly, how is any of this untrue? Do you have specific examples to refute the assertions in the letter?
Firstly, Ms. Grover's criticism of an SC member by name and other members of the community is specifically not permitted by the public comment rules.
Secondly, Ms. Grover's statements about CKK are false, that is why she could not support the false assertions with any concrete examples. Ms. Grover could learn from CKK, who is always prepared and ALWAYS supports her opinion with facts, unlike Ms. Grover who could not support one of her false statements, and only spewed the script provided by RD's public relations people. Believe me, you knuckleheads are fooling no one.
Very ironic that Grover attacked CKK, as CKK has been saying for years that the Highschool was being neglected as resources all seemed to flow to the primary schools.
MG wanted a scene, she made a scene and now she gets to be a big girl and take the consequences. She was put up to this by her cowardly leader. She wins no medals of courage for her cheap shots, and she deserves every bit of condemnation she gets for this. Her attacks were directed and called by name. She made assertions that are not supported by the facts. She is a city employee (not just a parent) appointed by the mayor and she is an officer in the educational foundation that gets tax-exempt status because it is there supposedly to serve the public good. She abused both things and made a highly political, targeted personal attack (thinly veiled under an ineffective guise of a parent just speaking her peace). This targeted political and personal attack was allowed by the chair (probably encouraged), who had a responsibility according to policies and basic rules of ethics to shut down anything even approaching a political, personal attack, and this chair sat there obviously enjoying the whole ugly spectacle. The Weekly News also deserves its share of criticism for allowing the printed letter while not making sure something journalistically sound was there to balance it. (Both papers should be criticized for their failure to explore the significant stories that Thorp's apology revealed, that of a brewing federal civil rights investigation and of the chair's breaking the law, after the Committee had done the exact same thing and been cited for it by the AG's office in recent years. Those papers also failed to report the numerous troubling factual representations that Mrs. K brought forward in the past superintendent evaluations and school committee self-evaluations, choosing instead to report only the canned version of the "facts" as presented by the administration.)
Now it's time for the community to show whether or not this is the kind of Melrose it wants. It's guaranteed that this kind of tactic will only escalate until the election if it is allowed to stand because this sordid little exercise shows us that these are the kind of cheap and unethical individuals holding the reins of power in Melrose right now.
It appears that this obvious political attack by the treasurer of the MEF against an elected official may be a violation of its non-profit status under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, which could jeopardize its-non profit status. Under this section, any political activities, direct or indirect, by the non-profit group or it's officers is prohibited That is aside from the fact that MEF is accepting government contributions of taxpayer dollars for redistribution via "grants" to...public employees. This is an obvious circumvention of law to direct tax dollars to favored city employees or schools who are in good graces with the current administration.
There is no reason that MEF can't operate like any other non-profit with donated funds.
Watched last night's meeting with interest and noted Ms. K's excellent statement about the budget, CC's incoherent rant, JD's incessant and strident blathering (she really obviously wants a job in the district, as does MD), MD's stonefaced silence, RD's twitchy silence, CT's defeated demeanor (she must have been read the riot act by RD), and DC sitting there doing Facebook!
Two parents (Very unhappy about Kindergarten placements--which weren't on the agenda but was the topic of one's public comment) and Gerry were there for the first few minutes, then zero in the chamber. Just like most of the last 3 months, there were exactly zero questions submitted in advance to Finance Chair/Super for their 15-minute session. Such public engagement indeed! And the MEF attack dog was strikingly absent after that ill-advised scene she created last week.
Quite revealing that the idiot biz manager wouldn't answer a direct question, claiming it would be "too complicated". Such obvious incompetence and he's clearly in the bag, too, with the party line about not "being able" to answer.
I agree - it was a circus Tuesday evening - worth the price of admission -free! Frankly, I would prefer that all of them (except CKK) take this show on the road and save the citizens from watching this dismal display of idiocy.
This MG has been a political tool with an obvious hateful agenda for a long time, trash-talking (quite viciously) those with different views. Her defenders should beware. This is not a person of integrity you are defending. If you dare to oppose her or her "causes," you'll be subject to the nastiness she freely and energetically levels, regardless of whether it's based on anything true.
Those defending the indefensible attacks by MG against the "disingenuous" Ckk are without conscience or grounding in fact. There are six years of articulate, honest, and factually-based School Committee materials prepared by Mrs. K that anyone can access and that illustrate her integrity, hard work, and tireless advocacy for all students of Melrose. By contrast, those produced by the rest of them indicate a very troubled set of values, to put it mildly. They lack substance, and they certainly indicate shoddy work and contempt for the public.
Public criticism of elected officials should always be welcome; and that includes the ones you agree with. All the complaining on this string is nonsense. Grow up. This is big boy and big girl politics.
Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries! Go and boil your bottoms, you sons of a silly person. I blow my nose at you, you tiny-brained wipers of other people's bottoms!