Thursday, December 11, 2014

Regional School Committee Runaround

Amherst Pelham Regional School Committee 10/14/14


The Keystone Cops have got nothin' on our Regional School Committee when it comes to setting meetings.

Tonight's meeting, with only an Executive Session scheduled to talk about the many legal issues confronting the Region had to be cancelled once again because of a posting issue in Pelham, one of the four towns making up the Region.



The meeting on November 18 had to be cancelled because of a posting issue in, you guessed it, Pelham.  


The meeting scheduled for two nights ago (12/9) was canceled due to inclement weather (but never posted to the town website as such).

Ironically they were set to discuss the recent Open Meeting Law ruling against them, as well as a simple, quick, easy, efficient new way of posting their public meetings by using the ARPS website.  All it takes is a simple majority vote of the Committee.


But now the Regional School Committee meeting scheduled for 12/16, no longer shows the OML update and vote on the new "alternative" way of posting meetings on the agenda.  And if it's not on the agenda, they cannot discuss or vote on it.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

What do you expect when you have a clown running the show?

Dr. Ed said...

I'd imagine that billing the municipality a few thousand dollars for "rescheduling costs" would sorta put an end to this damn fast...

Or there is the "Ed Approach" -- hand deliver a flier to every house in town -- there can't be more than a couple hundred -- and tell the Sec of State that you are using an "alternative means of communication" in Pelham because the town is too incompetent to timely announce your meetings.

Issue a press release asking the media to help you communicate with the residents of Pelham because their town is too incompetent to do so.

Again, I don't think you'd have to do this more than once -- and yes, Dr. Ed actually would do something like this -- and it'd work....

And what could anyone say -- the information was conveyed to Pelham Residents....

Anonymous said...

What the hell is going on with this committee?

The first conclusion is simple incompetence.

Thanks to Larry, the second conclusion is there is some manipulation of the agenda going on. This is a committee that can have a larger number of members talking in private without triggering a violation of OML.

Anonymous said...

I'd like to know why the Gazette and the Bulletin were the only local news outlets that did not report the Attorney General's decision that Baptiste's illegal School Committee meeting was, in fact, an Open Meeting Law violation?

Anonymous said...

What's going on is Baptiste is incompetent.

Anonymous said...

Who is in charge of posting meetings in the different towns? I would think it is the Central Office staff but am not sure.

Anonymous said...

Baptiste being incompetent is irrelevant -- one can coax and babysit incompetence.

All you have to do is do the incompetent person's job for him and then convince him that what you are suggesting he do is what he needs to do. I did it for years...

Anonymous said...

The reason the OML violation and the alternative posting method are not on the December 16 agenda is because it's a meeting of the Amherst School Committee, not the Regional School Committee.

Larry Kelley said...

Well if you look at the screenshot of the posting notice it clearly says "Amherst Pelham Regional School Committee" at the top.

Haroudi Abash said...

The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget.

I forgot what I was talking about.

Dr.Ed said...

it clearly says "Amherst Pelham Regional School Committee" at the top.

Don't presume they are bright enough to use the correct letterhead. Be glad that they didn't write the whole thing in crayon -- on an old paper bag...

Larry, you aren't dealing with professionals -- haven't you figured that out YET?