Bellicose Bumpkin

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.
.
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.
.
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.