What are the actual legal costs taxpayers fund in the MPS budget? Why does MPS need their own attorney? The City's finances are so out of balance. The schools drain money needed for other priorities. The continuing mismanagement by incompetent school administrators should have ruined the MPS and impact the rest of the City. The crazy idea of paying for a new library is nuts when the police and fire stations are falling apart. The new Learning Commons at MHS should be open to everyone outside school hours and the Library maintained in its current size and scope.
We have a rogue school committee and an indifferent BOA - who only rubber stamp what the Mayor wants based on their personal connections to him...except for the few (Conn, Medeiros). This is all those BOA members who vote for this will not get my vote at their next election and neither should they get yours!
"What are the actual legal costs taxpayers fund in the MPS budget?"
Mrs. CKK has fought for that information for the six years she was on the SC and years before that. Haven't you read the many front-page stories about this bunch of contemptuous fools on the SC and trying to charge even our former elected representative something like $8,000-plus just for one of her many requests for information about this topic? Instead, everyone sat silent and allowed this bunch of thugs to deny her the information, keep her and the public in the dark, wrack up more legal costs (like enormous sums!) to hide the information (like the OCR facts), to fight the Attorney General's Office, to bring in more legal consultants to stage McCarthyesque monkey tribunals to prop up their illegal "norms", to figure out ways to bury more legal costs in SPED Settlement accounts (all lumped under SPED and not broken down for any kind of transparency), for starters. And they just march on with their disgusting pretend-meetings, with that angels-in-her-head nutjob creep chairman running things and controlling all access to information, even from the rest of our elected representatives! Instead of anyone showing up to voice legitimate concern and protest, the chamber is now empty most of the time. Meanwhile the MEF creeps keep packing in the mobs of ignorant and gullible young parents to their "Parent University," and other silly BS that is supposed to substitute for actual public engagement, while the MEF is even less transparent (though it takes taxpayer funds directly out of the city coffers--illegally, because the BOA allows the mayor to do so) than the SC. Melrose is idiotic. But then looking at what happened at the polls, the entire country is insane. The local bureaucratic creeps are just a microcosm of the federally empowered ones. Either it's time for a revolution in the public thought process, or civilization will be doomed. Either way, little stupid Melrose is going to have to clean up its disgusting swamp of corrupt politicians if it ever hopes to survive long-term.
A good place to start would be for the public to demand a full forensic audit (not the fake mickey-mouse things that RD and PDR claim are "audits"), especially now that a highly placed city employee with obvious links all the way to the top has been indicted for heinous corruption felonies. A full forensic audit would show where they've been hiding the legal expenses, the "settlement" costs, and where the slush funds are sitting, for starters.
School committee is ready to take the recommendation of CT and the city lawyer to hire an additional civil rights lawyer to investigate allegations at the schools. Do we have that many to need such a cost? Isn't that the role of the highly paid administration or even the police if the situation is that bad? Maybe we are hiring another puppet to control the spin. Mr. VC stated st the meeting that the person would be well compensated and they expect to get a lot of highly qualified applicants. I just want my water bill to go down but we apparently do not have the $$$ to allow that.
"Do we have that many to need such a cost?"
Actually, probably so, based on what I've heard from my state-employed friends who are incredulous about what Melrose citizens have allowed to happen. They can't understand why CT and most of the SC weren't required to be fired or recalled (naturally they also are astonished to know that RD made sure Melrose has a city charter that is missing a Recall capability for citizens. They are amazed that no one runs against He Who Must Not Be Named because of the corrupt way the charter has been set up to favor only a lifer hack like him and make it impossible for anyone qualified under normal circumstances--a professional person with ties to a lifelong actual profession--could run for mayor). RD is just a tiny version of DT in his arrogance and patronage corruption. The SC has had "cause" to fire CT many times over, but refuses to take responsibility for its one employee. They all choose instead to shine us on (and we let them) with their self-glorification. That Melrose citizens allow this continuing fiasco is mind-blowing.
For the SC to allow RVC to continue making "legal" decisions for the district is more of the fox guarding the henhouse, since he is largely to blame for many of the disasters that continue to blossom into new ones. The fact that he will be "supervising" this new assistant city solicitor is a travesty. It also gives a small window into the enormity of the legal costs that the SC and superintendent have been hiding. Of course they have no intention of getting rid of the SPED law firm either, the one that has cost this city untold millions by now in failed "advice" about how to cheat special needs students out of what is lawfully and morally their right to an education, and then to wrack up more legal bills defending their indefensible actions or lack thereof.
They lost JL the only one who under stood payroll.