The Charlestown Town Council hasn’t been a model of good conduct for a very long time, though Council President Tom Gentz has struggled hard to at least maintain what he describes as “decorum.”
But the June 15th meeting, from the standpoint of decorum, was a bad meeting where Council members sparred, and sometimes threw some hard shots, almost from the opening bell. It got ugly, but at least there weren’t any assault arrests.
Council member Lisa DiBello clearly came looking for a fight and started early during “Council Member Comments.” Breaching the usual protocol of keeping executive session matters confidential, DiBello noted the Council had conducted Town Administrator William DiLibero’s annual performance review, and that DiLibero had brought his lawyer with him.
“Is the town going to be paying for her time?” DiBello demanded to know. She said she asked because she noted he was one of the targets of DiBello’s legal actions against the town and that DiLibero, along with five other present and former town officials, had asked the town to pay for private counsel.
DiLibero seemed surprised at the question and answered that he had not yet worked out a compensation deal with the lawyer.
Then DiBello switched to another line of attack. This time she said her sources told her Council members had held private meetings with the YMCA presumably about the fate of the controversial abandoned camp. She also said her sources told her the town submitted a $300,000 grant to buy the Y camp for open space.
Planning Commission head Ruth Platner replied that the Charlestown Land Trust, in cooperation with the Y, had submitted the grant application. She said she and her husband Cliff Vanover had volunteered to help write the grant.
Council member Gregg Avedisian said that, yes, he had walked the land with the Charlestown Land Trust and had been talking with the parties about implementing a “win-win-win” compromise to allow some small development and a lot of land preservation as the final disposition for the land.
When one of the big issues of the day came around – the response to Larry LeBlanc on his verbal offer to sell his controversial acreage – the usual CCA alliance of Gentz-Slattery with DiBello in support fell apart. Even though the nearest thing to a CCA endorsement for negotiating a deal for the land came in the form of an enthusiastic report, and testimony, from the Planning Commission, the CCA voting bloc split. Gentz was all in favor of pursuing a deal, but Slattery publicly challenged him, as did DiBello.
Despite Gentz’s impassioned plea, his motion to make a friendly approach to LeBlanc was shot down. A substitute motion by DiBello and Slattery to send a stiff, if not edgy, letter to LeBlanc passed instead.
NOTE: I think the CCA may need to get their bullpen going in case they need to field yet another new slate of Town Council candidates for 2012.
The next fight DiBello wanted to pick was over staffing at the Senior Citizens Center Dan Slattery ’s turn to tell DiBello that she didn’t have her facts straight and then gave his detailed narrative.
But close to two hours into the meeting, some real hard shots were thrown. Council President Gentz started by jabbing. He reviewed a policy the Council developed last November that called for Council members to go through the Town Administrator when they wanted to talk to town staff. He asked if everyone still agreed to that policy and was abiding by it.
DiBello seemed to know where this was going and said that she had talked to Parks & Recreation staff but only after telling the Administrator she was going to do it. In hindsight, I wonder why her intervention with the Senior Citizens Center staff didn't come up again in this context.
Gentz remarked that he was uncomfortable with DiBello's private conversations with town staff since DiBello was “suing the town” and her private conversations could give her unfair legal leverage.
DiBello flared up at that, telling Gentz she resented his remarks and that he was being “ridiculous.” She accused Gentz of violating the policy by attending town hall staff meetings and said she had a report that Gentz held a two hour conversation with the Tax Assessor (Ken Swain) in the town hall parking lot.
Avedisian jumped in and said he had reports she was at the town beaches talking to town employees and had parked in a space reserved for one of the vendors. Several times DiBello denied she had been to the town beaches at any time this year. But when pressed, she finally admitted she has been at Blue Shutters Beach
When the Waste Water ordinance came up, DiBello got to sit out a round, because the next big fight took place between Council President Gentz and attorney Maggie Hogan. Hogan came to the podium with a long list of questions and challenges to the proposed ordinance and essentially conducted a deposition of the Waste Water commission representative Peter Ogle and town wastewater manager Matt Dowling. It was a long and intense session.
At the end of it, Gentz said the issues Hogan raised could have – and should have – been raised earlier at the Commission level, since they had been working on the ordinance for months. Hogan fired back at Gentz, telling him how very busy she is and that the town should have given her, and everyone else better notice. And she said the pages of the ordinance weren’t paginated. And the ordinance wasn’t posted until June 9 (six days prior). And she had a hard time figuring out how to use Clerkbase.
Gentz backed out of the fight, saying he hoped the town would be able to improve its system for getting material on its website.
The meeting ended on a tired and confused note when Council members were told they could not act on the last agenda item, the request that the town pay for private lawyers for six town officials named in Lisa DiBello’s EEOC complaint, and likely lawsuit.
From what I saw, it looked like the CCA majority voting bloc fell apart at this meeting. While Gentz and Slattery will probably find a way to kiss and make up, I think they can no longer count on DiBello’s vote to hold a clear majority.
It was disturbing to hear Council members attacking each other on the basis of reports from spies. How many agents do Council members have to watch and take notes on the other Council members?
And I sensed that Gentz was almost – but not quite – ready to raise an inevitable question: can Lisa DiBello simultaneously serve on the Council and sue the town?
Author: Will Collette
