In the Company of Men.
By Jim Conley • Jul 27th, 2007 • Email This Post to a Friend •
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I’ve reported previously that the Brookline Office of Official Obfuscation (doing business as Town Counsel Jennifer Dopazo’s office) replied to my public records request on the Farmer’s Market debacle by sending me a handful of documents I could have easily found on my own.
I did receive copies of a few e-mails, though. And all of them are from the Town’s Commercial Center Liaison Marge Amster. None - absolutely none - from the boys in the Brookline DPW made their way to me. Even though it was they who were pushing for a fee increase on the local farmer’s market.
Then again, I didn’t expect any. Many call Brookline Town Government an “old boy’s network.” I wouldn’t say old. My experience is that many of the males in positions of authority act like damaged adolescents (marked by the bullying, the sniping, the having to win at all costs, the lashing out at people who disagree with them). And in the adolescent stage of life, boys blame the girls for their woes.
The irony is that our town government is lorded over by a Board of Selectman that has three women in the majority and still this goes on. But don’t expect them to stand up to the boys, how could they? Of the 24 major departments in town government only 5 are headed by women. Even though many departments have recently experienced a change in leadership, it’s all XY all the time at Brookline Town Hall.
That’s Progressive Brookline for you. What a sham, er shame.
Jim Conley is publisher of On Brookline.
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At least we know who wears the pants on the BOS. Or do we?
Would it be appropriate to make a public records request relative to any Town policies or procedures for responding to such requests by utilizing Town Counsel’s office that may have been established or considered in the past several years, perhaps going back to when then Chair Allen expressed his views on such requests? I wonder how creative might be grounds for NOT providing such public records under the public records laws.
Does Town Counsel’s office maintain time records for the involvement of its attorneys in “filtering” or whatever it does in its “coordination” of public records from various Town departments to be produced pursuant to a request under the public records laws? Shouldn’t TMMs be interested in this when budgets for Town Counsel’s office are considered?
I am not aware that Town Counsel’s office requires those making public records requests to pay for the time and effort of attorneys in Town Counsel’s office in its “coordination” of public records in response to such a request. Why? I have my suspicions but would like to hear from Town Counsel’s office. My concern is that the Town may be using Town Counsel’s office as an enabler or facilitator to put the brakes on public records requests in Brookline. If the Selectmen, and Town Counsel’s office, feel strongly that the public records laws thwart good governance in Brookline, they should make the case publicly to the Legislature to perhaps carve out a Brookline exemption.