Can’t Make This Stuff Up.
By Jim Conley • May 2nd, 2008 • Email This Post to a Friend •
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After several years of covering Brookline town hall, I thought nothing could surprise me. I’ve come to expect as commonplace the mendacity and lunacy that results from putting damaged adolescents in charge. Most times, a roll of the eyes will suffice to relieve the agony.
But I never thought I’d see something like this.
Imagine, if you will, that a property owner in Brookline—say, Kenneth Kurnos (who is chairman of the Town’s Human Resources Board)—decides that he wants to “preserve” a vacant parcel abutting his residential lot in South Brookline. He’s worried that the elderly owners may try to turn the undeveloped parcel into cash (and ruin his bucolic view). So, he introduces a warrant article (local legislation) which would resolve the Town of Brookline to take the property through eminent domain and then declare it a sanctuary. [See the draft proposal]
Now, in most municipal governments the proposal wouldn’t make it past the laughing stage. But this is Brookline. And no one is laughing.
Instead of shooting down the canard when it appears before them, Brookline Town Meeting creates a Sanctuary Study Committee (organized by the selectmen) to look into the merits of Kurnos’ proposal. They appoint Selectman Nancy with an Asterisk Daly to serve as the chair. She and the other selectmen appoint a host of municipal employees to advise them on the matter. [See meeting minutes]
And then—I’m not kidding here—they appoint Kurnos to the Committee as a voting member; even though he appears to have a conflict of interest. But you wouldn’t know about it, because he hasn’t filed the potential conflict notice required by the Massachusetts Ethics Law. And the selectmen haven’t pushed for one.
Town Administrator Richard Kelliher tells me that it’s normal practice to appoint a petitioner to a study committee. Well I would imagine it is — on a Pledge of Allegiance resolution. But this one involves the involuntary taking of property (at significant taxpayer expense) and at least the appearance that the petitioner might gain financially should his proposal prevail.
Folks, this is how they roll in your town government. They either can’t think through the ethical parameters of their office or they can’t be bothered.
I’ve been around long enough to know, especially when it comes to Nancy Daly, that it’s a toxic mixture of both. And I understand her comments about the lawyer representing the elderly couple created quite a dust up on Tuesday for that very reason.
Apparently, once again, she made an asterisk of herself.
Jim Conley is publisher of On Brookline.
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POGO TO THE RESCUE?
The late Walt Kelly’s Pogo is on his way to our Muddy River Swamp from the Okeefenokee Swamp to check into a possible Ken Kurnos Kornflake of Int’rest on his warrant article. Pogo doesn’t know the difference between a swamp and a sanctuary committee but may want to check if any friends or relatives may be involved. Pogo just might consult with an attorney who was a former Selectman in our Town to see about a turn-around of this potential regulatory taking under the 5th and 14th Amendments since Pogo’s regular attorney, Albert the Alligator, is not licensed in MA. Or Pogo just might play possum if this gets too political.
Let’s get this straight once and for all.
The town’s most pressing need for North Brookline is more dense development to generate tax revenue, and dense development to support affordable housing.
The town’s most pressing need in South Brookline is for open space. Otherwise, where would the South Brookline children play?
And if you don’t like it, stop re-electing Bobby Allen, Nancy Daly, and company.
Nancy Daly’s dust-up comments concerning the attorney representing the elderly couple may have been her notice to that attorney:
1. If I am reelected, watch out!
2. If I am not reelected, watch out after my one (1) year moratorium expires for my legal competition.
But that one (1) year wait can seem interminable. Just ask Mike Merrill who may be champing at the bit for a few more days before he can once again engage in former Selectmen-attorney lucrative law practice before our Town’s boards and agencies. Brookline’s political revolving door can be quite dizzying.