Thursday, January 14, 2010

A Lack of Leadership

A bit touchy, isn’t he? Is Middletown Township Board of Supervisors Chairman Tom Gallagher supposed to be immune to criticism? In a recent Courier Times article, Gallagher said that “Chuck Thompson should let us have a meeting or two and see how we operate before commenting on this stuff.”

This “stuff?” Mr. Gallagher, this “stuff” is the public’s business. This “stuff” is important to the future of our community. This “stuff” involves taxpayer money, and when taxpayer money is at stake, there should not be a grace period of “a meeting or two” to observe how you operate. Your responsibility as an elected official to be fiscally responsible with tax dollars begins on day one, not after “a meeting or two.” Further, your misrepresentations are so transparent as to be ludicrous.

I know that others were concerned with your decision to put public comment at the end of the meeting and your disingenuous excuse was that you didn’t want the consultants to have to sit through public comment.

Since you didn’t even have minimal documentation at the meeting in which you appointed a new solicitor, I can only take you at your word that his compensation is exactly the same as the last solicitor, except that the hourly rate is $120 instead of $125 an hour.

I wonder if you even know that the solicitor is usually paid a monthly retainer to cover all time spent attending Board meetings, weekly staff meetings, telephone calls and e-mails between his office and the manager, directors, employees and the members of the Board of Supervisors. These items never appear as time charges on the general bill as they are all covered by the retainer.

The hourly rate is paid for any other work, such as writing ordinances, contracts, reviewing documents, litigation, etc.

Therefore, Mr. Gallagher, you aren’t saving any money by having the solicitor or other consultants sit through public comment. Furthermore, the solicitor and engineer frequently respond to public comments because they involve projects on which they are working. Not having them available for public comment is a disservice to any resident with a concern.

How contemptuous you are about public comment: “The only piece of true business at the reorganization meeting was approval of the bill lists and I called for comment on that. The other things were not public comment items.” Seems you have changed your tune from the few times you decided to attend a Board meeting to enlighten us with your criticisms. And if appointments are no longer “public comment items,” the township should be able to avoid frivolous lawsuits like the one you filed over this topic in 2008.

And speaking of disingenuous. The school board does indeed meet the second and fourth Tuesdays of the month. So if you were truly interested in allowing these people the opportunity to attend the Board meetings, why not hold them on the first and third Tuesdays? Sure would have been a lot less confusing.

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