My column in this week’s Middleboro Gazette is an analysis of the recent town elections. The column is on-line – which is happening most of the time now. The column has received rave reviews – with “rave reviews” being defined as two people telling me that they like it.
There is something just so wrong about citing yourself, but still fun.
Facebook users who support Allin: Please accept this FaceBook event invitation. After that you can invite your Middleboro Facebook friends to VOTE for Allin.
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Allin is graciously inviting people to his headquarters on Sat. Night to await results(after 7:00 PM)
Supporters, residents, and other candidates are invited to my headquarters anytime after 7:00 PM to await election results and start the way forward on the right foot.
Selectman candidate Allin Frawley has amassed an impressive list of endorsements. By my count:
It is no secret that I’m supporting Allin in this campaign. That said, I can’t recall such wide support for a candidate. Particularly in the case of Bruce Atwood and Jack Healey, I find their lack of endorsement for Marsha Brunelle or Mimi Duphily almost as interesting as their endorsement for Allin. Both have a long history in Middleboro political and social circles. Note – that I can not say if they are supporting one of the incumbants or not – I can only say that letters of support have not appeared in the Gazette. One would have to believe that their letters supporting Allin would have included any other candidates they were endorsing.
Candidate Ben Quelle has racked up a decent amount of endorsements as well(McKinnon, Edeway). What stands out to me is that the few letters of support for Marsha Brunelle and Mimi Duphily are not coming from the Middleboro’s heavy hitters. The one exception would be an endorsement from fellow selectman Steve Spataro. Selectman McKinnon has strongly endorsed Allin and Selectman Rullo was at Allin’s PotLuck Push Party – you can decide for yourself if that means anything.
From the “Cheap shots usually backfire” department, opinion on Allin’s performance at candidate’s night is pretty much unanimous. He looked strong standing up to a cheap shot question about Allin, his new wife, and new child being renters – an issue that was never hidden or even discussed. Following that cheap torpedo Allin gave what I consider to be the best, most heartfelt, and unscripted answer of the night when a new resident asked all the candidates to give him some good news about Middleboro. Allin talked about the great kids in Little League doing field clean ups, our spectacular herring run, our five Wildlife Management Areas, and the people who love this town. Well done Allin – especially coming on the heels of attack questions.
You’ll notice that most of my posts are about Allin Frawley’s campaign for a seat on the Board of Selectmen. That’s true. I’m supporting Allin heavily and don’t have time for anything other posts at the moment.
Tonight – Wed Mar 23 there is a Meet the candidates event at Oak Point.
Saturday night – the social event of the season takes place – a Potluck push party to rally Allin’s supporters for the final push to election day. I’ll be playing acoustic music for this event at 51 Centre Street in the heart of downtown Middleboro from 5:30 to 8:30 at the scenic headquarters of Team Frawley.
This has been an exciting campaign to be involved with. Make sure you are part of it by attending this party. Frawley’s headquarters have been the sqawk of the town so be there or be square.
Fantastic article in the Enterprise about Allin’s campaign heaquarters being a first in local campaigns. Allin Frawley – candidate for Middleboro Board of Selectmen – has a rented a storefront at 51 Centre Street in downtown Middleborough.
The article quotes the other candidate’s reaction to the storefront. Ben Quelle had very gracious comments, Marsha Brunelle thought it was out of place for a local election, and Mimi Duphily was flat out negative on the idea:
I wonder if Mimi’s negative statement’s about Allin’s downtown storefront were made from her downtown storefront?
It’s well known that I’m supporting Allin – but I wish Ms. Duphily would stow the sour grapes and just admit that it was a fantastic idea. Like Ben Quelle did.
Former long time Middleboro Town Manager Jack Healey endorsed Allin Frawley in his run for the Middleboro Board of Selectman.
I’ve seen a lot of endorsements in my day but I have to say that this is one hell of letter. Healey notes that he has “never before stepped forward to publicly endorse a candidate for selectman”. Consider that Mr. Healey served as town manager for about 9 of the 12 years that Selectman Marsha Brunelle was on the board. I think the endorsement for Frawley – and lack of an endorsement for Duphily and Brunelle speaks volumes.
The endorsements are rolling in and Allin is doing his part. Are you doing yours?
Former Middleboro selectman Adam Bond has a letter in the Gazette this week that argues forcefully against re-electing the current incumbents Marsha Brunelle and Mimi Duphily. Bond was chairman of the BOS when he resigned in 2009 due to what he called “the co-opting of the majority of this board to favor tribal and investor interests rather than the towns”. Bond’s editorial letter raises a number of the controversial issues of recent months such as removing the pledge of allegiance from BOS meetings, failure to adopt rules, and the aborted plan to curtail the right of the public to speak during the “other” section of BOS meetings.
As tough as the letter is, it’s not the toughest I’ve seen. that honor would go to the letter from former Town Moderator Jim Thomas that appeared in the Gazette last July. In it he called Ms. Brunelle “most unprincipled, most arrogant, most shameful, most disgusting member of the Board of Selectmen in Middleboro’s history”. Ms. Duphily got a lambasting as well. Thomas dubbed her a “poster child for sycophancy” with a “legacy as a suck-up to Brunelle”.
Obviously, I am voting for Allin Frawley. I’ve known him for several years and am impressed with his commitment to the town – as evidenced by all the meetings he attentds – and his pure intentions. Allin doesn’t have any relatives working for the town or anything to gain. I haven’t yet decided if I’ll bullet vote for Frawley or vote for another candidate as well. None of the other candidates have asked for my support and the published letters in the Gazette don’t give enough details on their positions for me to make a decent judgment.
The Gazette also featured a nice article about Allin’s campaign headquarters. Allin’s site is being updated very regularly and is worth visiting at least once a day.
My last three columns in the Middleboro Gazette were a series on Middleboro public schools. The short version is that the schools are under-performing – at least as measured by MCAS scores – and are lacking any structured way of engaging advanced students in the younger grades. The columns also explored alternatives to completely replace or supplement Middleboro public schools.
Homeshooler letter
I got a fair amount of feedback on the columns. This current edition of the Gazette has a letter from a homeschooled student that took issue with me saying that I had concerns about the social aspect of homeschooling. The data on the topic clearly shows that homeschooled students have no social issues and generally outperform their public, private, and charter school counterparts. Still – with kids that have been in the public school system for many years – moving them to another system, homeschooled, private, or otherwise – is of concern to me.
Feedback from teaches and administrators
I had a great discussion with a teacher that started like this: “I have a bone to pick with you Mr. Bumpkin. I was a school teacher in Middleboro for 32 years and I think I did a pretty good job”.
Mrs. Bumpkin ran into the new headmaster of the Nichols School – Mrs. Feeney – who said she really liked the columns and might want to have me come in to discuss our experience with Study Island – an on-line MCAS preparation site that we signed up for. As an aside – I’m very impressed with it so far.
I’m sure many local educators were less than thrilled with the columns. I think they were fair and expressed my honest and justified concerns with my kid’s education.
A man like you
I was talking to some people I met recently and the topic of my column came up. I was trying to describe the gist of it and one of them described it as a “contrarian” column. That’s a good description – I am often critical of the ways of town government. That is the nature of a column or blog for that matter – you tend to write about things that are bothering you. Sure, I could write that the sun came up today – and isn’t that wonderful …. or that the fire department rescued a kitten from an extremely high tree. Writing is a creative process and topics come from whatever is on your mind. The fact that the sun came up isn’t often on my mind.
I had an interesting run-in with a selectman recently who was questioning the value of having a relationship with a “man like you”. I’m not so sure I ever got a good description of what a “man like you” was – so I’ll go with contrarian … at least until a better term comes along. Or one that can be printed and used in polite company. Your mileage may vary.
Middleboro selectman candidate Allin Frawley has announced the opening of his campaign headquarters in downtown Middleboro.
Exciting stuff. That’s one less empty store front in downtown.
From The Enterprise:
I have video of the last BOS meeting where McKinnon motions for Brunelle to be removed as chair.
Middleboro selectman Steve McKinnon made a motion to remove Marsha Brunelle as BOS chairman over what he considered to be an ethics breach. Brunelle had chaired a meeting that concerned an assessment of the IT department – which is run by her husband Roger. McKinnon felt that Brunelle should have recused herself. Chairman Brunelle was unapologetic and said she would contact the Ethics Commission for a decision. The motion to remove her as chairman failed with a 2-2 tie. Rullo and McKinnon voted for removal – Duphily and Spataro voting against.
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Unbelievably, an amendment to the motion that simply asked Brunelle to recuse herself from any discussions involving the IT department also failed 2-2 with the same selectmen voting for/against. To me this is a clear conflict of interest – but view the video and decide for yourself.
I’d be interested in what others think on this. It is simply unbelievable to me that any public official would fail to recuse themselves when their spouse is so closely related to the discussion at hand. It is even more incredible that two other officials – Spataro and Duphily – would support it. At the very least there is a huge appearance of conflict of interest. Since his re-election, I’ve been impressed with Spataro’s performance. I’m disappointed with his vote on this and hope it doesn’t presage a return of the old Steve.
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FinCom’s original attempt to streamline IT, improve it’s services, and reduce cost has been ruined. First their proposal was gutted and transformed into something that wouldn’t achieve the original goals. FinCom proposed a town wide assessment. The BOS and town manager turned it into a half-measure that only looked at the school department and general government and created the appearance that they were trying to protect the IT director. As a town, we have taken something simple and sensible and turned it into something ineffective that (at least) has an appearance of conflict of interest.
I haven’t watched all of it yet, but the Enterprise has a short article about a discussion at last night’s BOS meeting regarding a proposal to to swap four parcels of town-owned land for the St. Luke’s Hospital property in downtown Middleboro . There has been talk of using the site for a police station. The building is currently vacant and looks to be in pretty rough shape. I have heard that it is completely gutted inside – which is a good thing. What surprised me in this article was that current proposals call for the building to be totally or partially demolished and rebuilt. That seems to make the project less viable.
I have serious doubts that any wind project could be done on some of the smaller parcels that are being discussed. If this ever goes forward, we’d better do something smart to prevent the land from being used for something we don’t want.
$11M to $16M!! I thought we were talking about $6M for a brand new station about a year ago.
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Conceptually I like the idea of turning the abandoned St. Luke’s into something that wasn’t such an eyesore but it has to make financial sense. From the quotes in the article it sounds like the selectmen are doing due diligence on this.
From the Middleboro Board of Selectmen meeting of 2/22/2010 – town manager Charles Cristello reads the draft of a letter to the Mashpee Wampanoag. The letter is prompted by reports that the tribe has been fishing around the Freetown/Fall River area for a new casino location. It’s pretty common knowledge that the sovereign casino in Middleboro is doubtful at best and most likely impossible. It is also obvious to most that the amount of infrastructure required for the Middleboro location makes the project a non-starter.
The tone of the letter is more forceful than past communications which have been mostly fawning and ineffectual. In a subsequent post I will include video of the BOS and public discussion.
USS-Mass is asking for people to sign this petition which calls for an independent cost/benefit analysis of casinos and slots.
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Now back to the post.
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Adam Bond floats some interesting ideas about the latest developments in the Middleboro casino saga:
Bond has a point in that the bill repeatedly mentions Bristol County as the location for any indian casino.
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The bill mentioned in the post outlines the sort of preference that would be given to any casino with an indian component:
I read this legalize as saying that to get a preference, the tribe must have trust land eligible for gaming under IGRA and agree to a fully commercial casino in Bristol County. Trust land is a very tall order thanks to Carcier v. Salazar which means that no Indian tribe is going to get a preference for anything.
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This is a great example of what the BOS is NOT doing and HAVE NOT done since the IGA was signed in July 2007. No matter how things change, what events occur, or what Supreme Court decisions come down, the Middleboro selectmen do nothing. In this week’s Gazette, along with my wonderful column, is an editorial from Jane Lopoes that wonders why the heck the BOS aren’t calling the tribe given the events in Fall River recently.
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Why indeed.
At the last Middleboro BOS meeting, the board continued the discussion on hiring an outside company – Hub Technical Services to assess the town’s IT infrastructure for $10K.
According to FinCom, they are looking at the projected deficits and trying to find ways to save money. It’s pretty well known that the town has several small IT groups/people. The library, school, G&E, and to some degree the police/fire departments all have people that manage their IT needs with some level of support from town IT director Roger Brunelle.
To that end, FinCom contacted Hub Technical and invited them to a FinCom meeting – which I happened to attend. FinCom member Jo Thomas seems to be running point on this issue and got references from other towns and businesses that use Hub Tech – all positive as I understand.
Mimi Duphily and Al Rullo seemed to be grasping for ways to torpedo this very sensible idea – particularly Mimi. Presuming that the assessment would lead to staff reductions Mimi said she “didn’t want to put people out of a job”. That’s a nice sentiment but a terrible philosophy for controlling costs, streamlining business operations and improving efficiency.
In the end, the BOS motion directed Al Rullo – a person with zero technical expertise, to talk to the various town departments, and ask them if they wanted an assessment done, and what they would like to get out of it.
At the risk of stating the obvious – this is dumb. It is like going into a hosptial and asking the patients if they would like some treatment and if so what kind they would like. If the town knew what it’s IT infrastructure was lacking, it would be fixed.
The BOS have taken a very sensible proposal, one that FinCom spent significant time and effort on, and gutted it to the point where it is useless. The scuttlebutt from onlookers is that the BOS, particularly Mimi – are trying to protect Roger Brunelle. If so it’s bewildering. Nobody is talking about replacing Roger Brunelle – just assessing the IT infrastructure. When Hub Tech presented at FinCom, they said it was very common to leave people in place, like an IT director to act as an interface with the town.
This was worse than bad leadership. It’s one thing if you fail to lead, it’s another all together when you fail to take sound advice for reasons that you either can’t or won’t vocalize.
“Enhanced” video of the Middleboro town meeting of May 26, 2009 that discussed an article to increase the fine for smoking marijuana to $300.
I’m going to make an effort to post audio of Middleboro Selectmen meetings more often. Especially since the process of converting my videos to audio and uploading to nemasket.net is largely automated.
This weeks Gazette is full of interesting articles and letters to the editor.
Bumpkin’s Corner – my bi-weekly column gives an overdue update on the CPA effort. That alone is worth the price of the paper, at least to my mom.
Word on Carcier v. Kempthorne/Salazar) came in at the 11th hour leaving editor Jane Lopes just enough time to opine that the already slim chances for a Middleboro casino have become much slimmer.
A great letter from former CFO president Jacquie Tolosko pointing out that the myopic BOS might do with some reading glasses so they can see the impacts and realities that have been pointed out repeatedly by casino opponents for almost 2 years now.
Another great letter from Mike Solomini about the Middleboro BOS’s reluctance to follow open meeting law. At the last BOS meeting, Mr. Solomini asked the BOS to amend meeting minutes to include the germane content of a discussion about the BOS’s connections with the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, it’s investors/handlers, and gifts they had received. Spataro and to a lesser degree Brunelle, put on a quite a display that fortunately has been immortalized in a video that will be posted soon.
The Gazette is still only 50 cents and this week’s issue would be a bargain at twice that price.
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