On Brookline

Whoever thinks a faultless Piece to see,
Thinks what ne’er was, nor is, nor e’er shall be.
In ev’ry Work regard the Writer’s End,
Since none can compass more than they Intend;
And if the Means be just, the Conduct true,
Applause, in spite of trivial Faults, is due.
- Alexander Pope

So now let us turn to another matter of import from last week — the surprise re-election of Nancy “The Asterisk” Daly to the Brookline Board of Selectmen. It was (and is), of course, this site’s view that the calamity visited upon us by Daly should have ended after three years. But voters saw it differently, and returned her to office for three more.

Fair enough. Uh, well, maybe not.

As with the override vote, a convincing case can be made that the lower life forms among our political establishment pulled a Nixon/Rove and unfairly influenced the election’s outcome. The eleventh hour charges lodged against Selectman Gil Hoy—Daly’s chief opponent—amounted to a political hit that had finally reached its target after months of wild shooting.

On the Thursday before the election, the Brookline TAB (a Gatehouse Media publication) ran a story implicating Hoy in a chilling incident of badge flashing (i.e., trying to worm his way out of a ticket during a traffic stop by showing his police commissioner’s badge). Stop the presses! No, no, throw away the key! Oh, never mind.

Wait 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.

With Colleagues Like These.

Once again, our Inspector Clouseau—Police Chief Daniel O’Leary— plays a significant role in this story.

At the time rumors began to circulate, O’Leary said he had looked into the matter and confirmed that Hoy had been “in contact with Boston Police.” Okay, was his clandestine investigation undertaken because Hoy called him and asked him to look into it? No. News of the stop came from another source (if it wasn’t Hoy, it had to be Boston PD) and I’m willing to bet I know who O’Leary dialed up after he learned of the so called contact.

The three ethically and intellectually-challenged “colleagues” sourcing the story had to have first heard of the incident from each other, or from O’Leary. But the story only can make it to print if they say Hoy had told them of the badge flash (first person, and all that). That’s not a conspiracy theory, mind you. Over several months, they and their cronies were pitching all kinds of variations to the story, and they finally got it in print using this one.

[An aside: I'd also be willing to bet that the smear campaign fueled by O'Leary and Town Administrator Richard Kelliher leading to Hoy's resignation was payback for Hoy's talk of "new blood" on the Zoning Board of Appeals and for his putting the Arthur Conquest incident on the Brookline Selectmen's meeting agenda in early June, 2007.]

The news hook, as they say in the biz, was that Hoy’s three “colleagues” (and the slippery Betsy DeWitt) were incensed over an earlier TAB story that had Hoy regretting having resigned his chairmanship, and saying that he’d like to take the gavel again. That, it might be argued, allowed for the unfortunate timing (for Hoy anyway). They were incensed now; wait a week or two and it wouldn’t be news.

Hoy didn’t resign, screamed Mermell, Allen and Daly. He was forced out. Oh really? I guess I missed the vote when Hoy’s four colleagues expressed their displeasure and forced him from his chairmanship. I thought to resign means that you give up the position.

You say tomato, I say here’s Hoy’s resignation letter.

Daly Makes an Asterisk of Herself.

But what of this business of the TAB endorsing Daly with an asterisk? I can only explain it this way — they must be smoking crack.

The paper says that they were “a little ambivalent” in endorsing Daly. I’d hate to see what makes them really ambivalent. The Asterisk has nothing but contempt for those who are not political insiders, and she has absolutely no intellectual heft. There’s no asterisk big enough to explain that away.

Need proof? Click on the video frame above [or here] to watch Daly make an asterisk of herself (and the Town) in front of Governor Deval Patrick.

I can think of no worse pair to engage the Governor than she and Kelliher (who is not much brighter than The Asterisk). What in God’s name were they thinking? That the Governor is going to commit to helping Brookline with its landfill costs right there, right then? Did they not hear him just describe a crisis in funding essential services?

Do you think he walked out of there saying he’s just visited “Massachusetts’ best run municipality” after that blindsiding? I doubt it.

More likely, he had to wonder how anyone could vote for someone like The Asterisk. But the better question is, how can any newspaper covering Brookline town government endorse her?

The Brookline TAB did; and now they can claim partial responsibility for all five selectmen currently serving. The TAB saw something special in each of these members and gave them the big thumbs up.

Like I say, they must be passing the crack pipe in the paper’s Needham offices.

Publisher’s note: I asked the TAB several questions on the story they ran and I received no response.

Update: I’m reminded that this puts to rest the idea that Gil Hoy received preferential treatment from the TAB because his mother’s real estate firm is a major advertiser. In fact, when I wrote for the TAB the heat rarely came from the Hoys. It was usually Daly, the insufferable Stanley Spiegel (as well as other members of the Advisory Committee) and Kelliher who often tried to censor me. The one time a Hoy family member went after me, it was Gil’s wife. And unlike the aforementioned worms, she put her name to the criticism.

E-mail the author by clicking here.

Archie reminds of the rather odd timing of the story and endorsement in relation to the TAB’s letter and guest column policies:

Jim,

Is it possible that Re-Chair-ed Nancy Daly had a second written question for Gov. Deval Patrick from Town Administrator Kelliher (continuing in his Edgar Bergan role) requesting funding assistance for the Town to cover $35,000 in outside legal fees reserves for Arthur Conquest’s MCAD claim against the Town?

There is a timeline to the TAB story on Hoy and endorsement of Daly that is in itself a story. As a weekly newspaper, the TAB has to anticipate events, such as the elections/overrides. To its credit, the TAB had placed a time limit for publication of letters and columns concerning the elections and the overrides so that the Thursday edition prior to the May 6th elections would not be encumbered with a last minute flood of such letters and columns.

But what the TAB actually did by running the Hoy non-story and its asterisked endorsement of Daly on the Thursday before May 6th was a deluge. There were contacts made with TAB personnel by persons politically interested in seeing that Hoy was defeated. Who were those persons? What did they tell the TAB and when? Surely there were Emails. Gatehouse Media should investigate this outhouse journalism by its Brookline TAB and flush this partisan hit-job on Hoy down the drain.

Advertisers, beware.

Archie Mazmanian