Never Let A Good Crisis Go To
Waste
By Robert Yarnall
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| CCA Ethicists Slattery & Areglado Pausing
For a Moment of Reflection Before Conducting Their Own Investigation |
The past five years in
Charlestown have been as politically tumultuous as any period in the town’s
history, aside from, and with all due respect to, the struggles of the
Narragansett Indian Tribe.
When (not if) our town is finally
required to deal with the reality of Native American sovereign rights, the
discussion will make petty arguments about weekend Ninigret concerts seem like
a stroll in the park. Demographics, the ultimate cultural glacier, can reshape
a political landscape in a couple of generations, far quicker than the
millennia required to craft Charlestown’s geological terminal moraine. But
that’s a topic for another day.
Currently, in terms of local
politics, the oddly conjugal sagas of Whalerock
and Ninigret
Park have produced a handful of bastard children (in the figurative sense
of the term for the concrete-burdened literati of the CCA) who have snaked
their way into town politics.
It’s not unusual that budding
political careers thrive on a Miracle-Gro kicker of timely political crises.
Winston Churchill, not Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel as some mistakenly credit,
authored the timeless maxim, “Never let a good crisis go to waste.”
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| The true path to St. Moraine's Church of Fear & Loathing |
There was nothing Churchillian
about the tactics of the Slattery-Areglado tag team when it came to the
political smack-down of then-Town Administrator William DiLibero, a
convenient fall guy for a contrived strategy best characterized as a “hatchet
job” by Charlestown sage Dr. Irwin
Birnbaum, former Chief Operating Officer of Yale University’s School of
Medicine.
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| "Dammit, Slattery! Drop the investigation and make me some coffee!" |
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| Citing an unnamed source, Areglado degraded DiLibero's performance at Harvard, all evidence to the contrary. How moral! How ethical! |
Later, the northeast regional
head of the National Parks Service program that oversees lands converted from
military use to public ownership came to Charlestown to explain that the federal government actually has no control over the 55 acres of Ninigret Park that is owned by the town free and clear, and is the portion where nearly all town-sponsored human activity
takes place.
Town Council candidate Areglado
mustered additional firepower by spearheading a petition drive in my
neighborhood abutting the proposed Whalerock site. A major factor he cited[1] to me was a concern related to him by his friend at the Harvard School of
Government, the venue for a Town Administrator’s Workshop attended by
Charlestown Town Administrator William DiLibero.
According to the otherwise unnamed source, DiLibero’s performance at the Harvard workshop was unimpressive[2]. Perhaps Areglado felt compelled to act on behalf of the town?
Maybe Areglado felt so compelled based on his 2012 Board and Commission Application that lists his occupation at that time as “President of The Center
of Ethical and Moral Leadership.”
And indeed
there was an internet-based reference to The Center of Ethical and Moral
Leadership, linking to a Massachusetts-based association of school administrators wherein the mission statement encompassed an imperative for
school superintendents to be perceived as the ethical and moral leaders of
their respective communities.
Oddly
enough, this particular web site seems to have been taken down, coincidentally preceding
Areglado’s initiative to require the Chariho School Committee to revise its 2008
Code of Basic Management Principles and Ethical Standards for School Committee
Members to reflect priorities he is championing. (The proposed revisions are
currently being discussed as agenda items and will be analyzed by Progressive
Charlestown in subsequent coverage of town events.)
The aforementioned community
advisory issued by Dr. Birnbaum, that the DiLibero firing constituted a
“hatchet job,” leads a curious person to the obvious corollary - that
perpetrators of hatchet jobs have axes to grind.
Would either Councilman Daniel
Slattery or School Committeeman Ronald Areglado qualify as a legitimate ax-grinder?
Is it relevant that Slattery was
an unsuccessful applicant for the $100,000 Charlestown Town Administrator’s job
to which William DiLibero was appointed?
Is it relevant that Areglado was
hired in 1998 as Principal of Charlestown Elementary School, and then gone one
year later? (Areglado’s wife was also hired in 1998 as Principal of Ashaway
Elementary School, also gone one year later.)
Ponder this: School
Committeeman Areglado trumpets his initiative for tightened ethical and moral standards at Chariho while Councilman
Slattery hones his formidable analytical skills as a substitute teacher in the
school system, simultaneously
beating his town council drum for Chariho budget cuts.
I have neither the innate
cognitive skills nor the corporate world experiences of high achieving
community icons like Irwin Birnbaum, but having spent over three decades in the
public schools of Warwick, every minute in actual classrooms with actual
students doing actual learning tasks like reading, writing, and arithmetic, I
respectfully suggest to my brothers and sisters at Chariho to check behind all
doors for hatchets.
But you already knew that.
FOOTNOTES
[1] This conversation took place at
the foot of my driveway on East Quail Run a little over a year ago, as I was
chasing leaves around with a plastic rake. The Areglados were out for a stroll
and stopped for a casual chat, which led to the disclosure. I was taken aback,
basically speechless at the tenor of the topic, managing to recount Irwin
Birnbaum’s assessment of the situation. Maureen allowed that Irwin was a smart
man, entitled to his opinion.
Later
on I realized I was more disappointed that they would even bring it up,
presuming I would buy into that kind of crap. I thought I had previously made
my position clear with respect to procedural rights accorded to public
employees. I would think that public school principals, of all people, would
understand that process. Apparently I was wrong. No problem, I’m used to it.
[2] Areglado’s remarks about
DiLibero’s performance at Harvard were publicly and directly contradicted by
Areglado’s political patron, Council President Tom Gentz, who said this at the
Council’s August 10, 2011 meeting:
“Bill DiLibero, our Town
Administrator has returned from being chosen as one of three Rhode Island
Municipal and State leaders to attend the Kennedy School of Government at
Harvard University for a fully grant funded three week long class. This is an
honor for Bill to be selected and a feather in the Town’s cap. He was selected
from a nationwide group of municipal and state leaders to attend. Bill
mentioned the leadership portion of the training, so I anticipate his direct
reports will be working on that skill with him. Bill sent out a Charlestown
ePipeline with information about his educational experiences. Pat Anderson, our
Town Treasurer was the acting Town Administrator while Bill is away at school.
Thanks to Pat for her service to the Town”
I
wonder who got it right – Areglado or Gentz?
Seven
months later, in March 2012, DiLibero was publicly vilified by both Areglado and
Gentz. One month later, DiLibero resigned.