The great thing about the Web is you can generate a dispatch of distress, turn it into a PDF and instantly email it to those gatekeepers of all things news and get the scary story out to thousands, almost overnight.
Jones Library Trustee Chris Hoffmann is just such an example: Click on his report below.
Chris Hoffmann reports
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15 comments:
Pungent and ugly.
Village of slime and shame.
great job chris
Mr. Hoffman is not some loose cannon. This is one of the most decent and thoughtful public officials we have. If he's at the end of his rope, we need to pay attention.
How does one get to Peyton Place? Drive over the Coolidge Bridge and through Hadley. It's at the top of the hill in a small town, Amherst, where do-gooders with confidence that massively outweighs their common sense, and fueled by a false self-righteousness, wreak havoc on other people's lives in the name of progress. It's a good sign that a good person in a position of power has stood in support and challenged the recommendation. Let the issue be resolved on the merit of the arguments and not on personal recriminations.
It's time to Amherst voters to grasp that the wing-nuttiest board or committee in town right now is not Select Board (not by a long shot), not even School Committee, and not Planning Board. It is, and has been for some time now, our Library Trustees.
Now our library employees are paying the price. It's time to wake up and smell the lunacy.
The spirit of Paul Revere lives!
If this is even close to the way things really happened, it's both surprising and not for Amherst. It is surprising that this sub-committee has attempted such a naked power grab - even to the point of running afoul of the SEIU. If Director Isman resigns, the Evaluation Board may get two for one. One - They may claim they have saved the town the cost of the library director's salary, since no one in their right mind would apply for the job. And two - the Eval Board will have bullied and intimidated their way toward the managing control of the library that they wanted all along. That's the part that isn't surprising.
If I was an employment lawyer, and read that that an evaluation is being crafted with an intent to force resignation or retirement with pension figures already computed for a 25 yr veteran employee, it sounds like a client I would meet with, especially if them client was discharged, or constructively discharged. If I was an employment lawyer, I'm sure I would discuss what constitutes violations of the ADEA (the Age Discrimination in Employment Act), the applicable MCAD discrimination statutes, and how this would be filed with MCAD, and then removed to federal district court in Springfield with compensatory damages, punitive damages, costs, and attorney's fees included in the complaint. If I was an employment lawyer, I would inform the potential client that the Town is going to have spend a significant money defending this, and the depositions of certain library trustees could be damning. In fact, if said trustees engaged in any common law infractions such as defamation, I would recommend that they be sued in their individual capacity, perhaps allowing the Town to refuse to defend them. That is, if I was an employment lawyer.
Oh, but we have two lawyers on Library Trustees, and they know everything. That's why we elected them.
Fifteen years or so when I was planning a move to Amherst, my friends from the big city said "Ah, Amherst." This was a positive. Amherst was special. Now, given all the crap that is seeping out from all corners of town, I can't imagine anyone responding with the same intent. The politics of Amherst have turned into something disgusting, disgraceful, and hypocritical. Unless one has that creepy desire to see things fall apart and enjoys watching the destruction, we are not the town everyone wants to live in anymore. The Rise and Fall of the Peoples Republic of Amherst. All hail the power grabbers...
Every single step a snake. Every stroll, a bite.
We need to find ways to back Chris Hoffman. It sounds to me like this evaluation committee is way over itself, involved in an inappropriate potentially illegal power grab. How do we recall Library Trustees?
"The politics of Amherst have turned into something disgusting, disgraceful, and hypocritical."
I'd choose these words: "weird, machiavellian and arrogant."
We don't recall anybody. Our current form of government has no recall provision.
If someone wants to go out and collect 15% of the registered voters signatures we can get a Charter question placed on the ballot.
But last time it took Stan Durnakowski two years to accomplish that.
while there are some crazy characters in town government - vince, jim, isaac, et. al. - there is only one who is a bully. yeesh.
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