On Brookline

Oh, where to begin.

If, after reading this site, for even the shortest period of time a voter is confused on the merits of re-electing Nancy Daly to the Brookline Board of Selectmen, let me put it to you this way — there are none.

Nancy Daly is nothing if not contemptuous of the public interest. Check that, if by public you mean the developers and large landlords who account for roughly 80 percent of Daly’s campaign sign placements, she’s without peers. She does their bidding and voting quite well.

Nancy Daly is a bully. Her treatment of Arthur Conquest during the Selectman’s handling of his appeal of the police department’s internal report into his treatment on May 24th was despicable. And she appeared to enjoy every minute of it.

She was made chair of the board of selectmen (nominally) and her presiding style is to sit and wait for Selectman Bobby Allen and/or Richard Kelliher to bark orders at her. I suppose that’s better than leaving her to her own devices.

She called the lawsuit by 75 residents over the St. Aidan’s housing project “outrageous behavior” and gave away millions in affordable housing funds to the Boston Archdiocese to build the project (though she is a member of the parish that received $3 million of that money for the land purchase).

Daly and her compatriots on that board — Allen and Selectman Jesse Mermell — were behind a shameful last minute political hit job concerning her opponent Selectman Gil Hoy. Readers of that (really crappy) story might be lulled into thinking that three TABbies find a character deficit in Hoy (a jury of his peers?). But what they are really mad about has nothing to do with Hoy’s moving violation in Boston.

It’s about Hoy pulling back the curtain of town government and letting the public peek in. The first thing Hoy did in his short tenure as chair of that Board was to institute a public comment period, where people could address the selectmen on any subject. Allen, Daly and Mermell went nuts. To them, the idea meant having to endure the cranks and conspiracy theorists. Hardly a meeting went by without Allen saying he wanted to torpedo the agenda item.

Hoy’s fate was sealed, though, when he suggested that the building zoning process could use some “new blood”. Bad move. That meant that the only blood we’d see would be from the wounds in Hoy’s back. And then came the smear campaign. It’s too ugly to repeat, but it features the three TABbies and their zoning cronies trying desperately to gin up a political assassination.

More of this. That’s what you’re voting for when you select Nancy with an Asterisk Daly on your ballot tomorrow.

Note: The unaware voter may come to believe that On Brookline supports the Hoy re-election. Not so. This site’s approach is to always be in opposition. As well, I’m sure the Hoy family will tell you that they look on this site with nothing resembling affection.