( - promoted by Dean Barker)
I am flummoxed by the goings on in Manchester.
This week, Mayor Ted Gatsas brought a proposal before the aldermen to extend the management contract at the Verizon Center for another 20 years. This is a major contract for one of the city's major facilities. The current contract does not expire for another six years, so there was no hurry to extend it, but Gatsas sold it by saying it was a better deal than we have now. Maybe it is - but could we have gotten a better deal?
We'll never know, because the contract was not put out for bid. One of the largest contracts the city has, and it was not put out for bid. And the aldermen passed this unanimously. Where is the oversight?
|
|
Then there was the vote to permit a large retail store in south Manchester, against the wishes of the neighbors. Six aldermen voted against the proposal, but eight voted in favor.
Another proposal is the plan by the mayor and Mike Lopez, the chairman of the board of the aldermen, to divert money collected from the city's cable tv fees to pay for operations of city government. This will reduce the availability of public, educational and government programming, cutting back on oversight by the citizens; it also will hide the cost of government because cable fees don't show up on our tax bills, but in our monthly cable bills. The city has binding contracts with the PEG providers (MCAM and the school district), but the mayor is using strong arm tactics to get MCAM and the school district to agree to terminate the contracts.
The absolute weirdest thing that the aldermen and the school board have agreed to is a $3,200,000 loan by the city to the school district for the district to buy text books. The city has been diverting state money from the schools for years, and now, to add insult to injury, the district has to borrow money to buy basic tools of education - and pay it back with interest? And both boards said this was a great idea. No, it isn't. It is a dereliction of the city's duty to properly fund education.
At a meeting last night, Gatsas told the school board that he had idea for cutting costs, but he did not want to discuss them in public. Perhaps someone challenged him on this, but if they did, the paper did not report it. Any ideas affecting the school district not only should be discussed in public, the city charter requires the school committee - of which the mayor is a member - to act in all matters as a body. There should not be secret meetings or secret proceedings at which the mayor and others are discussing city or school district business. It should all be done openly, in the light of day. But in Manchester, we seem to be seeing a shrinking in open and good government.
Manchester, oh Manchester.
|
