This is becoming so, so predictable. Whenever the Selectmen gather their remaining supporters en masse – an apparent attempt to show public support – get ready to be sold a bill of goods. This was the less than carefully orchestrated attempt to, once again, sell Milanoski to Cohasset residents as the perfect choice for Town Manager.
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The Special Town Meeting voting results and just a few indicators in the subsequent days reveal a slightly revised posture from our selectmen; before, they simply operated on the premise that they, and only they, possessed the wisdom to determine what was best for our Town. Now they have added a dimension to this position; not only are they right, they are the only ones who are right and, in fact, who have or will ever been right.
This outrageously arrogant attitude revealed itself at Special Town Meeting when the Governance Committee, carrying the tainted water of the selectmen, would not, then could not, fully and accurately answer the simple question of whether the DOR had recommended against piecemeal changes in the Town Managers Act. The eventual answer seemed to be, “yes, but they were wrong.”
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Last night’s BoS meeting lent great clarity to the major preoccupation of this Fall: just how were the Selectman, having executed an illegal contract with Acting Town Manager Milanoski, going to allow Milanoski to continue as Town Manager?
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I have now rerun the Milanoski interview from Our Town several times to try to get to the bottom of the sinking feeling I get when I hear his version of events which led up to his installation and the first few months of his tenancy as Acting Town Manager. It is now clear to me that he represents a grave danger to the future of Cohasset. I herein make my case.
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Noteworthy in BoS Chair Paul Carlson’s statements on Our Town was his reference to “having trouble getting financial information”; this didn’t keep him from stating unequivocally that the problem in the Water Department stemmed from a “perfect storm” of a wet summer and an economic downturn that forestalled anticipated new revenues.
To call this a misstatement would be overly gracious; this simplistic and completely incorrect explanation was the basis for selling a rate increase to Cohasset residents that was tantamount to the largest property tax hike in the town’s history.
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Hope you enjoyed your summer. While you were finding some relief, our top officials have been busy, busy, busy putting our house in order and conducting the people’s business. You may recall the serial disaster known as our Board of Selectmen and the messes they left before glorious summer hit and all of this receded into the background. Or so they wish…
Let us revisit some of the unfinished business and see exactly how it is playing out as our highest elected officials have been hard at work – counting on your short memories – to put many of these embarrassments to rest and, hopefully, to keep them there.
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Once upon a time in our picture perfect little town there were two adjacent salt water ponds, connected at one small point but sharing the tidal nourishment and replenishment of Cape Cod Bay.
A long, long time ago, perhaps a hundred years, some undoubtedly good intentioned residents took it upon themselves to improve on what nature had created by altering the natural tidal cycle of the innermost of the two ponds.
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Cohasset selectmen, excepting new member Gjesteby, face a dilemma of their own making. The former jewel of our town common, the Meeting House Pond, is rapidly turning into an eyesore and potential health hazard of major proportions as its stagnant waters close over with green pond scum and other unattractive growth. While our resident gurus ponder a cure, they have shut off the fountain, the last remaining chance for circulation, allegedly due to the high cost of water needed to continually refill the restored, repaired but still leaking attraction.
Their quandary? The pond is a small but much more visible reflection of their past actions regarding that much larger body of similarly stagnant water , Inner Little Harbor . Surrounded by the homes of some of our rich and famous and almost out of public view, most Cohasset residents have heard of the environmental challenges facing Inner Little Harbor but this whole issue has kept a low profile recently… out of sight, etc. However, there’s no hiding the pond and there’s no escaping the parallel between the two; stagnant water yields undesirable results.
But what can the selectmen do? Four of them are totally invested in the notion espoused by the E 20 that minimal water circulation can produce acceptable results; and now here’s Mother Nature demonstrating conclusively where such thinking leads us. They can’t very well turn their backs on their friends and neighbors and possibly only remaining voting block – picture the raised platform behind the selectmen during the televised inquisition of Town Manager Mike Coughlin – but they also can’t ignore the eyesore which confronts us all as we move around our tiny town. Will they fix the pond and continue to argue that stagnant water is OK, if its the right people’s stagnant water? Will they have to ignore our new man made mini-swamp, blaming and throwing under the bus their buddies at the water department, in order to protect themselves from a long string of increasingly embarrassing decisions?
A new crossroads has emerged, and, no its not the potential loss of another major motion picture and the revenue and eclat attendant. Now the DEP has asked the town to declare its intentions regarding Cat Dam and, by extension, Inner Little Harbor and given it two weeks to do so. The E 20, and the selectmen by extension, had thought they had maneuvered the situation into a perpetual stalemate; and they just might have … if the Selectmen didn’t have to deal with this new, pressing parallel issue which could have a major impact on their increasingly unlikely reelection efforts next spring and if the E 20 et al hoped to retain a majority voice on the board through other surrogates. Clearly the townspeople have put up with just about enough from this group; embarrassing them to their summer visitors, friends, family, all those who have told them how smart they were to buy, at a steep premium, in this picture perfect little town, should be the last straw as the Selectmen’s high stakes game is drawing to a close.
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It was all going so well at last night’s kangaroo court; Chairman Carlson thought he had this chapter signed, sealed and delivered… when did the investigation start? If it was after TM Milanoski interfered, then he technically couldn’t have interfered; case closed. Jenkins made the motion on cue; the vote was four to one, looked like a done deal.
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By Tom Wolf
I’m glad I waited a week to deliver the postmortem on May 12 Town Meeting, Part I; now it can include the autopsy report following the election.
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