Update from the Bunker.
By Jim Conley • Sep 25th, 2008 • Category: News and Updates, The Allen FilesI’ve been able to negotiate a deal out of this financial crisis which will allow us to purchase the remaining half of the pile above; but to pay as if the whole pile were being purchased.
I call this approach Frankonomics, and it’s all the rage.
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Guest Column: Systemic Accountability (Part 2).
By Archie Mazmanian • Jun 2nd, 2008 • Category: Brookline Selectmen, Override Ballot, Previous Columns, The Allen FilesThe ultimate question is, how can Brookline residents be assured that our Selectmen have duly and truly accounted for the Town Administrator’s performance if the Boards evaluations rendered pursuant to Section XI are not available to the public?
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The Reckoning.
By Jim Conley • May 22nd, 2008 • Category: Brookline Selectmen, Override Ballot, Politics, Previous Columns, Schools, The Allen FilesThere’s a reckoning coming, a swift and painful collapse at the foundation of our public institutions. A reckoning that will put to the lie the town hall propaganda of Brookline as “Massachusetts’ best run community.” A reckoning that will show the folly of placing our trust in a Board of Selectmen featuring four intellectually and ethically corrupted individuals (i.e., Allen, Daly, DeWitt and Mermell).
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The New Selflessness.
By Jim Conley • May 19th, 2008 • Category: Brookline Advisory Committee, Brookline Selectmen, Jesse Mermell, Nancy Daly, Override Ballot, Previous Columns, Robert Allen, St. Aidan's, The Allen FilesI’ll tell you what’s selfish - it’s school administrators and teachers whipping parents into a state of fear so as to vote them a pay raise. It’s the selectmen and the school committee unwilling to manage their $200 and $70 million budgets, respectively, in a way that avoids a tax increase on the elderly, who now get to choose between winter heat and paying their property tax bill.
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Brookline Does a Flashdance.
By Jim Conley • May 15th, 2008 • Category: Betsy DeWitt, Brawl at Town Hall, Brookline Selectmen, Gil Hoy, Jesse Mermell, Nancy Daly, Police, Previous Columns, Robert Allen, The Allen FilesWait a minute. Don’t voters have the right to know of Hoy’s traffic transgression before the election? Sure. But Hoy is also due that the charges be aired by more reliable sources than his opponent and her two campaign chairs (Selectmen Bobby Allen and Jesse Mermell). Voters also have the right to know that these three “colleagues” were likely lying when they said that they had first heard of the badge flash from Hoy himself.
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Hack Attack — Condition Red
By Jim Conley • May 1st, 2008 • Category: Betsy DeWitt, Brookline Selectmen, Campaigns, Gil Hoy, Police, Politics, Robert Allen, The Allen FilesI’ll bet this is going to be talked about for some time. A few days before a local election, the TAB runs a story saying that last September Gil Hoy was “forced out” as chair of the Brookline Board of Selectmen.
Of course he was. Who didn’t know that?
It was clear at the [...]
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Character Watch.
By Jim Conley • Apr 13th, 2008 • Category: Brookline Selectmen, Nancy Daly, Politics, Robert Allen, St. Aidan's, The Allen FilesThe Globe’s City Weekly section takes a run at political analysis in today’s issue. And let’s just say they’d better stick to re-purposing press releases from Brookline Town Hall.
Beyond not knowing the proper spelling of the saint (Aidan) whose name graces a demolition project wreaking havoc in North Brookline, the Globe thinks that the [...]
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Benka Shows Up.
By Jim Conley • Apr 1st, 2008 • Category: Asbestos, Brookline Selectmen, Campaigns, Politics, Robert Allen, Spooner Road, St. Aidan's, The Allen FilesGee, you would think that after imposing the burden of the St. Aidan’s housing project on residents around Pleasant Street, our selectmen would show up to hear their neighbor’s concerns over lead and asbestos abatement. You’d be wrong.
Sure, Bobby Allen was on hand to provide his concierge service to this developer. But no others made [...]
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Depends on Your Definition of Broad (2).
By Jim Conley • Mar 19th, 2008 • Category: Betsy DeWitt, Brookline Selectmen, Override Ballot, The Allen Files, Town FinancesRemember when the pro-override organization “Yes for Brookline” (founding member Selectman Robert L. Allen, Jr.) announced that they have “broad support” for an override in Brookline? Remember that?
Well, I had heard that the organization headed by Selectman Betsy DeWitt and School Committee members Alan Morse and Judy Meyers had been polling the ballot (adios [...]
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Depends on Your Definition of Broad.
By Jim Conley • Mar 16th, 2008 • Category: Betsy DeWitt, Brookline Selectmen, CPA Vote, Override Ballot, Politics, Robert Allen, Schools, The Allen Files, Town FinancesAccording to the TAB, the pro-override campaign effort has been launched and it’s a doozy. The TAB runs the press release which features the announcement of a Web site, and that Selectman Robert Allen is a “founding member” of the committee. Co-chairs are Selectman Betsy DeWitt and School Committee Chair Judy Meyers.
Of course [...]
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Clearing the Air.
By Jim Conley • Mar 14th, 2008 • Category: Asbestos, Brookline Selectmen, Override Ballot, St. Aidan's, The Allen Files, Town FinancesIf it’s not apparent what the latest brouhaha over the St. Aidan’s housing project is about, let me spell it out. The church rectory is nearly a century and a half old; it’s listed on the National Register of Historic Places; and it housed the clergy who ministered to Bobby and Jack Kennedy. [...]
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Parking Build-up Avoided.
By Jim Conley • Jan 31st, 2008 • Category: Brookline Selectmen, Robert Allen, The Allen FilesThere is such a thing as too much parking at Coolidge Corner, or so said Jeff Levine, Brookline’s planning director at last night’s meeting of the Brookline Developer’s Guild (i.e., the town’s Zoning by-law Committee). In a session chaired by our own Man in Full, Bobby Allen, the committee set in motion a plan to [...]
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No Town for Old Boys.
By Jim Conley • Jan 25th, 2008 • Category: Brawl at Town Hall, Brookline Selectmen, Jesse Mermell, Police, The Allen FilesLooking back on Tuesday’s installment of the Arthur Conquest follies, I think I know why the Brookline Selectmen are firmly in the grip of insanity.
Conquest presents them with an opportunity to be progressive in matters of civil rights. But town government’s ideology is that of the movement conservative - robbing the treasury, pitting us against [...]
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Time Machine.
By Jim Conley • Jan 24th, 2008 • Category: BPD of Counsel, Police, St. Aidan's, The Allen FilesI’m hearing about events a few years back that ought to prove to Brookline residents that the politicization of the Brookline PD is not a recent event.
Sure, a lot has come to light in the past few months - as in the police chief and town administrator smearing Selectman Gil Hoy on rumored “contact with [...]
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Pour More Gasoline on the Fire, Nancy.
By Jim Conley • Jan 15th, 2008 • Category: Brawl at Town Hall, Brookline Selectmen, Jesse Mermell, Nancy Daly, Police, The Allen FilesSo much for getting the Arthur Conquest matter behind them. Just now, the Chair of the Brookline Selectmen told the public that, “Town Counsel [Jennifer Dopazo] has told us that she did not issue the “no trespassing order against Conquest, the police officer did that on his own.”
Well, um, Nancy; you’ve just told us that [...]
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