The Thanks You Get.
By Jim Conley • Apr 29th, 2008 • Email This Post to a Friend •
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What is it with these people in municipal government? I mean, after 9/11 I thought firefighters would never have to demand respect from their political bosses. But as today’s march on the State House indicates, it’s not so.
Here in Brookline, the hack job [see previous post] concerning “red flu” in the Globe’s City Weekly section was, apparently, part of a larger campaign to teach the jakes a lesson of some nature. (Folks, these stories—especially where the Globe is concerned—don’t come out of nowhere. )
City Weekly reported that the town was running a deficit in the account used to pay firefighters their sick pay. It’s an annual event, the deficit — because the Brookline Selectmen never adequately fund the account.
But, when Brookline Fire Chief Peter Skerry found out, as Paul Simon sang, “he began to shout and started an investigation.”
Oh yes, Brookline’s political bosses are “looking into” firefighters using the sick time to which they are entitled. But they’re not looking into all kinds of rumored nastiness at the Brookline DPW. They’re not interested in finding how investors achieved a $30 million profit from the sale of the Webster St. Hotel while the town got nothing, even though the building sits on town property. They’re not interested in looking into the suspect contracts doled out at the golf course, in school construction and roadwork.
No, they’re going to investigate suspected sick day abuse among the town employees who run into burning buildings as we run out. The same people who fall through floors and have their faces charbroiled while saving the family pets. Those people.
Yeah, let’s teach them a lesson.
Jim Conley is publisher of On Brookline.
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Very nice place on the TAB website to contribute to the family of the idiot who was smoking on the porch of that burning building on Harrison st, yet no doubt not one firefighter who risked his life to make a difference in that inferno has gotten a personal call from Rich Kelliher or any of Fire Commissioners, sorry BOARD of SELECTPERSONS, don’t worry the burns will heal but vengeance built ……………………