Merry Christmas to All... almost

Merry Christmas

Wishing a very happy holiday season to all of you who have visited us several thousand times. All the best to you and yours.

And now a word from the Cultural Communists...

And for the Pin Heads in the Medway School System... Your coat of arms

They are all Bozos on that Bus

The Selectmen's Meeting 12/14/05

The meeting started with the usual pontification by Chairman Ken O’Brien and supporting babble from Sharon Cutler. Nothing new there.

The big news at the beginning of the meeting was that Karen O’Brien had resigned from the Parks Department. The Board quickly filled that vacancy. Bob Duplin got the nod without any discussion…do these people read minds?? We never got the reasoning. Our understanding is that public issues should be discussed publicly. Do the Selectmen deliberate in private prior to their meetings??? In violation of the “Open Meeting Law”??? You bet they do, all the time.

Not much sense to having these Bozos on cable TV if they make their decisions in private and “inform” the taxpayers after the fact.

It was a hoot to listen the questions of the Parks Department from Sharon Cutler regarding the fencing of Memorial Field. She is truly clueless and obviously not a baseball fan. Her veiled reference to the baseball league taking over Memorial Field proved her ignorance of sports programs in Mendon. Sharon, believe it or not, baseball has been around longer than you. Get over it.

Ken O’Brien’s only interest was in getting the bid process of finishing the back fields turned over to the Selectmen. Ken must have some buddies in the landscaping business. The next thing we will hear from Cutler and O’Brien is that the Park Commissioners are up to something and just like the last time the youth of Mendon will suffer from the pathetic politics that control our future. Too Bad.

Chief Horn - Two Many Hats?

The following comment was left on another thread. It is worth re-posting as a stand alone thread.

Trish Rudden said...
"I am biased, for sure, working for the Chief of Police and Fire. However, I have worked with him for over 10 years, and am still impressed with his ability to manage a diverse group of people without quelling their need to be individuals and express their opinion at the same time. Just because Ernie Horn does not have Fire experience does not mean he cannot manage that Department, its budget or its members. I realize that the "title" of Fire Chief put many people in town on edge -- he hadn't been trained in it or earned it. However, he has rebuilt the Department from scratch and it functions well, and in the process he has not only learned a lot, but has also gone to bat for the Department in front of Town Meeting and the FinComm. I'm tired of listening to this group still complaining about a decision that is almost one year old now. No matter what the Chief does, it's not the way they would have done it, or not the way it should have been done, or not my way, or not your way. So what? It's the way it is: different? probably; wrong? he'd be the first to admit if it were; progressive? You bet."

Well Trish thank you for that post. The battle over the Fire Chief’s job was a huge political football for many years. It began with the resignation of Chief Deluca and continued for more than a decade. During those years the fire department suffered from neglect, waste, incompetence, theft, more waste, more incompetence and finally an outright insurrection. All of these things were the result of just one thing… LACK OF MANAGEMENT.

Whatever criticism anyone can conceive for Chief Horn no one can fault him for his management skills. To his credit he never publicly reveled how bad things were in the Fire Department nor did he ever compromise the security or public image of the Police Department before he got the Chief’s position. He just fixed the problems, and they were all people problems. (The worst kind)

All that said understand this; the man has an ego the size of Lake Superior and if he ever falters it will be as a result of hubris. He appears to control that ego very well these days. Let’s hope he continues.

In the meantime Mendon could do no better than Ernie Horn as a Public Safety Czar.

The DOR Report vs. Cronies R US

The DOR Report states in no uncertain terms that Mendon requires a Professional, Trained Town Administrator. In other words: Taxpayer money is being wasted. Labor effort is being wasted and the inmates are running the asylum. A recipe for disaster.

So what is the Board of Selectmen doing about this revelation..? Not a thing. They rejected the recommendation, cocked their little dunce hats back on their heads and moved on.

The DOR requested that the report be presented to the Town of Mendon at a Televised Selectmen’s meeting. Again, no dice from the Board of Omnipotence.

Why do you think they don't want to appoint a strong town administrator or even allow the report to be presented to the voters and taxpayers? It's a no brainer. They don't want anyone watching them. Kind of makes you wonder what they are up to.

Hang on to your tax receipts, the selectmen are about to hire another glorified secretary. You can be sure it will not be someone smarter than they are. It will someone they can push around and keep in the dark. Or it will be one of the "in" crowd. Rumor has it that they had 11 applicants. You can be sure the best of those will end up on the cutting room floor.



Next Post: The Screening Committee


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Happy Thanksgiving

Best wishes on the holiday to our friends and our enemies. Enjoy this most American of holidays. We will return on Monday 11/28 with more of our perspective on our hometown.

An Answer to Jay Byer

This is a response to Jay Byer, School Committee member who posted under the heading: “The Privacy Thing” Thanks for the input Jay. Remember, if you’re not part of the solution, you are most assuredly part of the problem.
----------------
Welcome Jay. We have always known you to be an up front guy with nothing to hide so it is no surprise that you would be the one to take a stand.

However you are under a few misconceptions and some of your other points are dead wrong. So here is our response to your comments.

First:
No one has to register or use his or her real name to post here or anywhere on Blogger. Simply choose the anonymous option and post your comment. The reason we know that the selectmen and other town officials read this blog is because they talk about it to people and people talk to us. No rocket science there. We use Sitemeter.com to track the number of visits we get. We have no idea who visits the site. Go to Sitemeter.com and see for yourself what information they provide.
As for your admonition to us to run for office: How do you know we don’t already hold office in Mendon?

Second:
We do screen posts before they appear on the blog. The reason for this is to avoid the smut purveyors that use robot programs to post comments to blogs pitching all sorts of perversion. All relevant posts appear here. We only censor the perverts.

The Judy Leonelli Thing:
We stand by the statements made about Judy Leonelli’s political position. Nothing written here rises to the threshold of either slander or libel. Look it up. If you feel the analogy to Jeffrey Dahmer was in bad taste that is your opinion and you are welcome to it. Those of us who met her when she arrived here knew she would be a problem if she ever got into a position of power. She did and she is. Just what Mendon needed was another rubber stamp for the 20 million dollar annual party that is the Mendon Upton Regional School District. More on that later.
The destruction of the historic home that is Leonelli’s business is another matter. If she truly wanted to make Mendon the next Sherborn she would honor the history of her adopted town. At this point it appears her only allegiance is to her personal bottom line.

The Corruption Thing:
We will restate it again in different words. There are many elected and appointed people in Mendon who understand what public service is all about and put in great effort, at least at first. There is also a core group of movers and shakers that do not have the best interest of this town, it’s history or it’s future at the forefront of their agenda. In other words it’s all about them.

Your example of Dennis Shaheen is a poor one. He’s a puppet. Then Selectman Jean Bavosi and her handler Tom Hackenson drafted him to defeat Selectman Conrad Beliveau. Seems Conrad had some issues with the ethics of building inspector Hackenson and his crowd. For Conrad that inquiry was and still is the kiss of death in Mendon politics. Shaheen was just a loyal soldier. He carried his group’s water for 6 years and was replaced by another shill, Sharon Cutler. Her first payback was to get her son appointed (by Hackenson) to the position of Assistant Plumbing Inspector. A clear conflict of interest for Hackenson the building inspector since her son is also a sub-contractor for Hackenson Corp. Shaheen’s pay back is in the bank. He will cash that check shortly.

The town is leaderless at this point. We desperately need new blood. Our goal here is to pull away the mask and shed light on what really happens and the reasons for it. Anonymity is not a bad thing unless they are controlling your government.

Editors note: For those of you thinking of attempting to shut down this blog or practice scatter shot harassment of citizens you feel are responsible, guess again. All of what is written here and much, much more has been archived in sworn affidavits. A third party holds these affidavits with instructions on when and who to release them to. Welcome to our world.

Judy Leonelli - This is how you do it!

Here are photos of 2 banks in Wrentham. These photos were emailed to us. The sender said it best:

"Here are pics of Wrentham banks that converted from beautiful, historic houses/buildings. These are examples of 'cooperative' banks that truly endorse the 'good neighbor policy'. Add these to the Saver's Bank in Uxbridge as creative samples of responsible, caring banks."

Thanks for the photos John!

The Privacy Thing

We have noticed that when we make a controversial statement in a post or Kevin Rudden does on his blog, people seem afraid to comment? It's like they think we can look back through their computer and see them.

Just for the record, neither Kevin over at Mendon Commentary nor us at An Eye on Mendon has any idea who is posting. Don't be afraid to leave a comment. Your opinion is valuable. Just the fact that you read these blogs is valuable.

The computer is not a seeing eye when you post through Blogger. We have no idea who made the comment. Part of the fun is speculating on the identity of the poster.

Kevin has chosen to be up front with his identity. You know who he is. Those of us at An Eye on Mendon have chosen to remain anonymous. The speculation on who we are is half the fun. Recent rumor has it that we are Kevin's wife or Dale Pleau. Keep guessing folks. We will remain anonymous.

Kevin will probably run for office in the future and will benefit from this exposure. We have no intention of putting ourselves or our families through that ordeal. It is our opinion that Mendon is a corrupt little village at it's core and as long as the voters and taxpayers remain asleep there is no good to be done by honest ethical people. We can try to wipe the sleep from your eyes but if you keep hitting the snooze button you get what you get.

In any event don’t be afraid to post a comment. There is no way we can know who you are. We do track visitors to our site. (Click on the box at the bottom of this screen). We know when you came and how many there were in a day. (That number is growing daily) But we have no idea who you are. If you agree or disagree with what we say here it is important that you comment. As we have written before, your elected and appointed officials check in every day. Lately it is the first thing on their minds. {;-) We can publish the numbers of visitors we have here (390 this week) but a few words from you are worth a million pictures. These people need to know you are watching them.

One more time… Democracy is NOT a spectator sport. Get in the game!

Da Crew @ Hanging Gardens

THE DEPARTMENT OF REVENUE REPORT

Well the Selectmen stepped it again. The difference/similarity this time is they did it to themselves. The Massachusetts Department of Revenue was invited by the board to review financial practices in town. They spent several weeks in town hall working on this project. The Report is now published on the DOR web site:

http://www.dls.state.ma.us/mdmstuf/Technical_Assistance/finmgtrev/Mendon.pdf

The major recommendation of this report is the dire need for the selectmen to hire a strong town administrator to focus the business of town government. Sound familiar? Professionally trained state watchdogs spent a few weeks in town and were appalled at the processes that pass for local government in Mendon.

Just so you know where your selectmen stand on this report, the DOR contacted all the people they interviewed in the preparation of the report prior to publication. Of the 3 members of the board of selectmen, only Lawney Tinio returned their call to discuss the report. Sharon Cutler and Ken O’Brien ignored the request to return calls from DOR. Not surprising since the latter two are enamored with their own self-importance and agendas to be named later.

Please take the time to READ THE REPORT. The Department of Revenue has requested that the report be presented to the town at a televised selectmen’s meeting with the local press in attendance. (We dare you to make the calls Ken) The DOR wants the taxpayers to know what is happening.

We know that the local paper (Milford Daily News) is aware of this report. Lets see how they treat it. They have been known to ignore important stories if they offend their friends or advertisers, money talks. The same is true for the local radio station.
Editorial note: The press is not free in 2005. All press is bought and paid for by their advertisers. Always follow the money. Your only hope of getting the real story is the Internet. The problem there is who do you believe? It takes some work on your part.

Read the report. We will be following this story like a bloodhound after a bad pair of gym shoes. Take the time to follow this. Changes are coming to Mendon that will change the way we look and the way we govern our people.

Democracy is NOT a spectator sport.

THE DOR REPORT

Hiring Practices in Mendon?

Time for a few words on hiring practices in town... wait... checking for a policy... still checking... Ok there they are. But there is a problem. The only hiring policies we can find are those for the police and fire departments. All of the hires in those departments are thoroughly vetted, professionally trained and guess what? It shows. Guess it must be that two-headed monster thing again.

The hiring practices we are referring to are for the BIG jobs in town hall. Those positions that come with 90% health care, holidays no one ever heard of and a tad of work sandwiched between 45 minute breaks, extended lunch hours, hair dresser appointments and an avalanche of gossip, back stabbing and Fridays off. Great jobs!

Mendon is about to endure another round of high level hiring. The Administrative Assistant and the Town Treasurer/Collector with be replaced in the next several months. If the past is any indication the taxpayers of Mendon will take it on the chin again.

The first change that needs to be made is a change in the job of Administrative Assistant. (AA) Mendon needs a Town Administrator, a professionally educated person with a job description that gives that person the authority to call the shots in town hall and the day-to-day operation of town government. What we have now is the inmates running the asylum.

Here is a little history lesson. About 6 years ago when the position of AA was open the last time the Finance Committee and others sponsored an article on a special town meeting warrant changing the AA position to a Town Administrator (TA) with the authority to do the job. The wailing from 2 selectmen and several of the movers and shakers in town hall was deafening. They didn't want a boss, unless it was one of them and they didn't trust each other enough to support that. They convinced the sparse group of voters that it was a bad idea, it was too expensive, and Mendon didn't need it. The voters said no.

The primary voices in opposition at the time were as follows: Selectman and Assistant Assessor Jean Bavosi, Selectman Dennis Shaheen, Town Clerk Margaret Tetreault and Town Clerk Assistant Margaret Bonderenko. Got all that? The Fix was in.

What happened next is classic Mendon. The job of AA was advertised and 6 resumes were received. Five of these were from people with relative job experience, degrees in public administration etc. The sixth resume was from none other than Margaret Tetreault the town clerk with no experience and no relevant education. Selectmen, Bavosi and Shaheen over ruled the third board member Peter Confrey and chose NOT to interview any of the applicants other than their buddy Peggy Tetreault. But they weren’t done yet. They waited until a few days before the closing date for nomination papers for town elections to appoint Tetreault allowing her clerk Margaret Bonderenko to take out papers and run unopposed for Town Clerk. Done Deal! You lose they win. Good jobs at good wages, Mendon style.

Fast forward to fall of 2005. Margaret Tetreault is about to retire taking with her 80% 0f her 50K+ salary and that plum of plums 90% paid health insurance. Will history repeat? If the taxpayers continue to do the Rip Van Winkle thing, you bet it will. The current selectmen have updated the dog and pony show but the result will be the same. One reason for this is the appointment of former selectman, insider and troglodyte Dennis Shaheen to the "Search Committee". Shaheen will shout and rant and get his way on this committee just because they want him to shut him up.

If you want to end the taxpayer funded party at the town hall and make the place a bit more user friendly, write the Selectmen or post a message here (They check in daily) and tell them to hire a TOWN ADMINSTRATOR with a pedigree. And while you’re at it, tell them to open the town hall on Friday.

The Building, Moral Obligations and a Keen eye on Mendon

The following comment was posted on Mendon Commentary by Blossom. It is worth reprinting here. We've added our two cents at the end.


Blossom Said...

"(Now comes my rant....)

And quite frankly, I've never seen Judy Leonelli in school committee meetings. I would hope that she does better there than when she called Horn a "two-headed monster." Again, I defer to our past: Mantoni, Fire Chief and Police Chief; Shattuck, part time Fire Chief; DeLuca, full time Fire Chief; Tetreault, part time Fire Chief; and Johnson, full-time Fire Chief. At least now, the decision to make Horn Fire Chief seems to be working -- I see the guys on the trucks, who come out in record number for calls without the "you owe me" attitude we suffered with for so long. Just because it was all we had, doesn't mean it was all we could get.

Stop settling for the cheap when we can get quality that lasts. Let's not sit passively for the Town Fathers making up our minds for us -- isn't that how we lost the old airport? And how that lovely piece of property on Providence Street, big enough to house Fire, Police and Highway, has a single Highway Barn sitting right on the road -- poor planning on the heads of those in charge.

I wouldn't be surprised, on another note, to see Sharon Cutler backing down on the "Joint facility or no facility" stand that she took on the Police Station when she ran for Selectman. That woman just doesn't want to build anything (or is it just that she's still mourning the library?)

Selectmen -- we want you to lead. We want you to do what's best for our town, and what's best for our citizens. Start doing it. Make a stand on the Leonelli property. Make a stand on the Public Safety Building. And by God, support your stand. Before we end up another few years down the road, another hundred thousand dollars out the window and not a damn thing to show for it."



Wow Blossom, your good and you know what is going on. Great rant!

Did Leonelli really call Chief Horn a "two headed monster"? That doesn’t surprise me. She is an effete snob and has been since she got here in 1986. Worse than that she is a Secular Humanist. Having her on the school committee is akin to putting Jeffrey Dahmer in charge of the menu. But I digress. Hell, the public safety portion of Mendon's government is a professionally run unit that is getting the job done. If I were king I would give Chief Horn a few more hats to wear. (How about the AA job Chief...LOL)

Leonelli is just trying to set herself up. Throw the building in a dumpster, lease the land to the Medway Co-operative Bank for 30 years or so and sit back and collect a nice income. There is nothing wrong with that except for one thing. A signature piece of Mendon history gets trashed.

Sorry Judy, purchasing a piece of history gives you no moral right to destroy it. Legally you may be able to do that but there is a price to be paid and these blogs are just your down payment. My guess is that given your elitist attitude this doesn't bother you in the least. Too Bad.


Hanging Gardens

Selectmen's Meeting 11-02-05

Well if you missed it, it was better than doing housework. Beyond that a re-run of a school committee meeting would have beaten it out in the ratings. I was folding laundry so it wasn't a total waste of time.

Other that the routine (they never say anything substantial on camera) banter it was a normal performance for our town fathers and the town mother. They can fill hours with wandering talk and mumbling from the administrative assistant. Why don't they get her a microphone?

Ken O'Brien was somewhat subdued. Maybe he is still dizzy from the rarefied air of Washington DC. Don't worry Ken; I am sure they all thought you were important. We do. In Ken's defense, he is the perfect promoter for a hurricane fundraiser or box tops for education. The problem stems from the priority thing. We elected him, unopposed, to do the town's business not Ken's business. Let's hope he doesn't get carried away.

Ken's not a bad guy, he just doesn't understand that this is Mendon Massachusetts, not Mendon New York. We are New Englanders not New Yorkers.

The Grande Dame of the board, Sharon Cutler, put in her standard performance attempting to micro-manage the air molecules within the boundaries of Mendon. She huffed and puffed and in the end nothing fell down. When her ill informed sanctimonious micro tweaking failed with her fellow board members she did her signature piece. She folded her arms, sat back in her chair and gave the other two members that look: 'Don't make me call the flying monkeys'. She’s’ a real hoot unless of course you work for the town.

The junior member of the board Lawney Tinio endured another evening of being treated like the red headed stepsister. Lawney has the Rodney Dangerfield thing going. In reality he is probably the brightest of the bunch but in the land of self-inflicted importance the town hall is a tough house. The other two should give him more face time. At least it would reduce the occurrences of them looking like fools.

It's hard to navigate any ship of state but when you crew on the good ship Mendon it seems that everyone has a steering wheel and no one has a clue. It's difficult to understand how these people make 12 million dollars worth of decisions each year. It's a wonder!

Mendon Commentary - The Century21 Building - Destruction of a Landmark

11/2/05 ---- Blossom is on the case... read the comments.
11/5/05 ---- Great post from Old House Lady... read the comments.


Things are heating up over at Kevin Rudden's blog, Mendon Commentary. Check out the post on the ZBA and the Century21 building issue. It's a shame what is about to happen to that fine old structure.

We have added a link to Mendon Commentary here. We suggest you keep up with both blogs to stay informed. You will not see any of this in the local daily paper. They are in the tank.

What Happened to our Town Web Site?

Well we will start here. The pile is so big it's difficult to pick a starting point but this issue will do because good people got hurt and "friends" got taken care of. Read on.

If you have been paying attention, you have noticed that the OFFICIAL web site of Mendon has been down for many months. The first web site was created by a committee and then maintained by Joyce Grant for nearly 2 years as a volunteer effort. Joyce is a web professional who makes a living designing web pages. Her work is great and the web presence she created for Mendon was impressive.

After 2 years of solo work to keep the site fresh and informative for Mendon residents, Joyce requested a meeting with the Board of Selectmen to discuss compensation for her work. The updating of meetings and notices was very time consuming and Joyce wanted to take the site to the next level by making it more interactive and timely with regard to the events calendar, meeting minutes and the ability to procure town forms and make payments on-line.

The selectmen at that time felt that she should do the job for nothing and that her request for $2500 a year to maintain the site was exorbitant. It was a hoot to watch the board swing in the wind and spin their wheels trying to end that session. Mr. Shaheen who's knowledge of technology begins with a hammer and ends with posting "No hunting" signs on his soon to be developed property,(that's the hammer thing again isn't it) was cordial but he acquiesced to his other 2 board members. Mr. O'Brien who never grows tired of the sound of his own voice went on about nothing for far too long. But, the real Bozo that evening was Ms. Cutler. She asked impossible questions about updating the site and made technical observations that were rather humorous if you know anything about web hosting at all. In the end it was all a smoke screen by the board, They didn't like Joyce Grant because she actually could sit there and tell them they didn't understand her profession. They, after all feel that an election makes them omnipotent. The game was over for Joyce Grant at that point. They would no longer allow her to host the web site even if she paid them.

That display of pin headed arrogance was bad enough but what happened next was classic Mendon politics at it's best. The board ordered their computer consultants, Data Frontiers, to strip all of Joyce's work from the URL that had been hosting the site for free and re-post it to one of their own, at a cost of course. The troika of pin headed selectmen didn't even attempt to make a show it, you know, nice letter thank you very much for all your hard work etc, etc. Nope, not from that bunch, it was, screw you sweetie, we're taking your stuff and you are out in the cold.

After a few weeks and talking to a lawyer or two, wiser heads prevailed and the site was shut down completely. The board decided to commission a "Nation Wide Search" to hire a company to design a web site. Guess who got the job? Data Frontiers... Of course.

Data Frontiers is one of the biggest "no bid" contracts in town. Don't believe it, call 473-2312 and ask for a print out of the money that has been paid to this company for FY 2004 and FY 2005. Then ask for the publication dates advertising for bids for the contract and the date of the meeting the Board of Selectmen opened those bid and awarded the contract. Other that than the invoices paid none of the rest exists. Additionally, if Data Frontiers was paid more than $10,000 in one year(and they were) the contract is illegal, a violation of Mass State Law. But then Mendon does that regularly.

The Board of Mendon selectmen is about to get a big black eye for this type of thing, but more about that later.

The bottom line here is this. Mendon still has no web site. The cost of replacing what Joyce Grant asked $2500 to do will be at least twice that amount and not as good. The Board of Selectmen in Mendon continue to play a go along to get along game with each other to achieve their own ends. This one was Sharon Cutler's baby. The other two went along to get her support for frying much bigger fish of their own down the road. Stay Tuned...

The Ground Rules

All comments are welcome. Anonymous posts are fine. We live in a small community and putting your name to a less than flattering post can work against you. That said, we will not tolerate slander, libel or bad taste.

Please try to have some facts if you make a statement. Nothing is worse than a battle of wits when your unarmed. Email is available and confidentiality is promised to anyone who would like to contribute.

By all means, check in and let us know that you are reading. We thrive on encouragement, positive and negative. We will be posting our first issue about the town website on Halloween. Trick or Treat.

Keep in mind that we want to inform our readers about good stories as well as look under the rug and poke through the dirt. Enjoy!