On Brookline

“Always make the audience suffer as much as possible.”

- Alfred Hitchcock

Long time readers of this site know that there is no affection for Brookline’s institution of representative town meeting. I know town meetings. I grew up in a central Maine town where the liquor store was closed until town meeting adjourned. More than a check on civility, the closing was a powerful incentive to wrap up business before sundown.

Ours was an open town meeting, meaning that any registered voter could be heard on the warrant articles for that session. A moderator and selectmen were elected on the day of the meeting and the discourse was, well, salty. And often minds were changed when people heard a side of the story other than town government’s.

We don’t have that in Brookline. We have “elected voters” who essentially show up to feel important and rubberstamp proposals made by the Town Administration.

The Obligatory Hack Scene.

The Brookline Town Meeting is presided over by a moderator whose job is to rule on amendments, keep order and (in the case of Brookline) see that Town Hall flunkies get what they want. Brookline’s moderator is Sandy Gadsby (pictured right). In addition to his meeting responsibilities, Gadsby appoints members to an Advisory Committee, which is supposed to function as a finance committee in competition with the selectmen.

But it’s about as competitive as a game of chess with Kim Jong-Il. Over the last five town meetings, the Advisory Committee and Selectmen have only disagreed on a handful of measures (five at the most), while considering over 100 hundred warrant articles.

The Committee is part of the Town Hall Team, and it’s Gadsby’s job to make sure it stays that way.

Now if you and I were appointing members to a finance committee overseeing a $200 million municipal budget (and about $400 million in unfunded liabilities), we’d seek out people who have some experience within that range. Members who might be able to challenge Deputy Town Administrator Sean Cronin (the point man for the selectmen) and various department heads.

Not Sandy. His Advisory Committee is a Who’s Who of Brookline hacks. And the scary thing is that these hacks actually think they know something about municipal finance.

[An aside: One of my first gasps of the Brookline miasma was when two members of the Advisory Committee (who fashion themselves as budget experts) picked a fight over a column I wrote in the TAB, though they had never heard of the program-based budgeting method on which I based the column.]

What’s really extraordinary about the Advisory Committee is the fear that its members try to produce among each other and project to those who may come before them. It is often the case that people who are contemplating a contentious appearance before the Committee will receive a call from its more offensive member (think Dicken’s Mr. Smallweed) and suffer threats of ridicule should they disagree with the party line.

I mean really, the threat of humiliation before the Brookline Advisory Committee (or the full town meeting assembly) is kind of like fretting over finishing last in the village idiot balloting. I’d worry if I started to make sense in front of that group.

But it’s not fear of ridicule that has most town meeting members of pallid cheek. It’s the fear from knowing that if they step out of line they won’t get their sidewalk repaired or receive the new gym set for the local playground. It’s the fear that they may end up with a 40B project near them or a condo complex across the street.

And there’s nothing like fear to drive people into strange behavior, as in the call I received on May 6th.

Is That You Jimmy Durante?

Recently I wrote that Gadsby had appointed a Brookline schoolteacher to the Advisory Committee and I questioned whether a town employee can serve on a committee which has financial review authority. [see previous]

Gadsby told me that the member, Sytske Humphrey, is not a town employee because she “works for the school department” (I’m not kidding). Besides, says Gadsby, she works really hard on the Committee and no one has been “small minded or mean spirited enough to raise this issue with him before.”

To some, the idea of a school department employee questioning the superintendent as his budget is reviewed (as does Humphrey) doesn’t sit well. The fact that she abstains from voting on the package doesn’t absolve her from a conflict of interest - she shouldn’t even be in the room. But Gadsby put her there.

After the article on Humphrey appeared, I received a bizarre phone message. The call showed up on my caller ID as originating from a pay phone at a local retailer. Here’s what I heard: click on player

The caller is referring to the local bylaw section (Section 2.2.1) which prohibits town employees from serving on the Advisory Committee. The implication is clear - Gadsby had made an illegal appointment, and no one dared challenge him. That’s why people came to me in the first place…and then call from pay phones.

Obviously, the caller’s voice is disguised and I’m willing to bet that it’s an Advisory Committee member. So why the cloak and dagger? I’m not going to give him or her up and the person didn’t leave me any information I couldn’t have found on my own.

Gee, do you think the fear of a thin-skinned town moderator who tells me that I’m mean spirited and small-minded to question one of his appointments might explain it? I dare say yes.

The key to maintaining the crony system in Brookline is placing people who know absolutely nothing (see: Nancy Daly as Selectmen’s chair) in positions of power and then scaring them into submission.

That’s how we end up with an Advisory Committee that, instead of serving as a check on the Town Administration, is nothing more than a blank check for the continued abuse of town resources.

Scary stuff, that.