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| Oh Mageau, Where Art Thou? |
After last week’s “shock and au revoir diatribe,” as commenter Sisyphus Opine put it, I was anticipating more fireworks at Monday’s sequel. After all, Jim Mageau was on the agenda to gloat over his ruling from the Attorney General about Town Administrator William DiLibero’s evaluation, and due to illness he’d been unable to attend last week to try to object to the Town Council’s pro forma redo that the ruling had necessitated.
Alas, Mageau was once again a no-show. But Mageau’s specter hovered over the discussion of the Friends of Ninigret (F.O.N.).
First order of business: Discussion of IRS Publication 526 as it relates to the Friends of Ninigret Park.
In response to Jim Mageau’s claim that it’s somehow illegal for the town to collect donations for specific projects and call the deductions tax-deductible, the relevant portions of the IRS code that spell out exactly how and why this is perfectly proper were read into the record.
Next order of business: Discussion
and adoption of a Town Council policy regarding the appointment of Board and Commission applicants.
Full disclosure: I had a personal stake in this one seeing as how I was one of the people who was shut out from being appointed to the Affordable Housing Commission (AHC) last month because I submitted my application 12 hours later than the previous person.
Councilor Lisa DiBello
opened the discussion by proposing that applications to serve on commissions be
forwarded to the appropriate commission for an advisory opinion before being
voted on by the council. Councilor Marge Frank expressed concerns about the
delays this would create in filling openings and read the wording from the
charter that calls on the council to encourage citizens to participate. Council
President Tom Gentz wanted a first-come, first-served policy as he felt that that kept “politics” out of it.
Councilor Greg Avedisian stated that such a policy would not keep politics out
of it, as
the dispute over the AHC appointments at the November council meeting clearly showed.
AHC Chair Evelyn Smith took to the podium to point out that
under the charter, applications are supposed to be received at least 10 days
prior to a council meeting in order to be considered at that meeting, precisely
to allow them to be reviewed, and that as commission chair, applications do
already get forwarded to her as soon as they are received by the town clerk.
She stated that citizens do not have an absolute right to serve on any
commission they choose and gave examples of instances where this would not be
desirable, such as if a person who was opposed to the work of a commission
sought a seat on the commission for the sole purpose of disrupting its work, or
if two neighbors who were known to be sworn enemies were both seeking to be on
the same commission.
In the end, the rule passed with the stipulation that it would only apply in instances where there were more applicants than openings. And indeed, later in the proceedings, Smith’s recommendation from among the eight applicants to fill the last remaining opening on the AHC, Charee Jackson Andersen, was duly accepted.
Next order of business: Discussion, review and potential vote regarding an Affordable Housing Resolution and proposed Affordable Housing Legislation.
After all the acrimony caused by the original proposal, I half-expected a last-minute attempt to sneak some of the controversial dropped provisions back into the final resolution, but the only discussion hinged around a proposal by Evelyn Smith to add explicit wording to make it clear that nonprofit developers would still be able to receive consideration of “friendly” proposals (i.e., ones that conform with existing zoning and land-use ordinances) even during the proposed moratorium. The resolution and the amendment both won passage. Whew!
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| The box that launched a thousand investigations. |
Next order of business: Public hearing and possible vote on Ordinance #345 amending Chapter 158 – Parks, Beaches and Recreation Areas. Yup, the Notorious F.O.N.
Councilor Dan Slattery opened the discussion by reading off a mind-numbing series of regulations and restrictions that would govern the Friends of Ninigret Park, necessitated by the “citizen allegations” made regarding its initial fundraising event. It was pointed out that the rules were far more restrictive than those governing other similar organizations such as the Friends of the Animal Shelter and Friends of the Dog Park, but Slattery reiterated that in light of the citizen allegations, it was necessary to prevent any further allegations. As if.
Because of course the firestorm over F.O.N. has nothing to do with the propriety or legality of the organization itself and everything to do with irreconcilable differences between Jim Mageau and Frank Glista. No amount of new rulemaking can Mageau-proof any project or idea if any one of Mageau’s many enemies are involved. But I suppose such truths cannot be spoken in the council chambers.
Only here on Progressive Charlestown.
And so the fingernail-pulling ensued over bookkeeping and accounting and tax deductions, oh my. At one point a proposal was floated to require that all donations be made by check, but this failed to pass as it was pointed out that people would not likely have their checkbooks with them at a festival to drop a donation in the lockbox.
And finally, at long last, after Gentz pointed out that the council had spent far more time on the matter than warranted over $23, the motion passed, 4-1, with Lisa DiBello (as expected) being the only opposing vote.
Vegas odds: 8-1 that Mageau will take the ‘Persons Wishing to Be Heard’ spot in January to complain about the formation of F.O.N.
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| Unacceptable colors in the Traditional Village District. |
Final order of business: Letter from Margaret L. Hogan, Esquire on behalf of James Lynch,
regarding defects in the Zoning Ordinance.
This high-entertainment-value item—namely, Dunkin
Donuts’ objection to town enforcement action against them for replacing their
old Planning Commission–approved sign with a new one bearing the company’s new
corporate logo—was postponed to give Town Solicitor Peter Ruggiero time to
draft a response. Stay tuned in January.
