Pass the Potato

The Hot Potato, that is.

The Hot Potato will be back on the table at tonight's Board of Aldermen's meeting, with newly sworn in Ward 3 Alderman Stephen Stat Smith calling for a legal opinion as to the employment status of Lona DeFeo, the School Department Maintenance Director who recently plead guilty to several counts of procurement fraud.

That this exercise is even necessary gives us an idea of how out of touch the School Committee is. There should be no question that Mrs. DeFeo should have been relieved of her duties immediately upon her pleading guilty to these charges. She plead guilty to committing a felony while performing her duties as maintenance director. If the Superintendent did not immediately dismiss her, the School Committee should have ordered him to do so. Again -- what the School Committee refuses to accept is that the Superintendent reports to them. Yet they continue to let him rule the roost, so to speak. And now that they continue to refuse to accept their responsibility in the matter, another member of City Government must step forward to try to see that the right thing is done.

How will this play out? Our new mayor has yet to make any statement concerning the indictments of the superintendent and Mrs. DeFeo, he has yet to make a statement about Mrs. DeFeo's guilty plea, he seems loathe to involve himself in school department matters -- except to say, in his inaugural address, that "whatever communication problems have existed in the past [between city hall and the school department administration], I hereby proclaim are over and I do mean over." Perhaps the Mayor's first communication should be to the School Committee recommending that they immediately dismiss Mrs. DeFeo as the maintenance director. But that's probably not going to happen.

This is what we predict. Alderman Smith will ask the newly appointed "part-time" City Solicitor John Kryzovic for his opinion. Mr. Kryzovic will defer to the School Committee, claiming (as members of the Board of Aldermen have in the past) that the City has no jurisdiction over school department matters. The School Committee will claim that Mrs. DeFeo's employment status is at the discretion of the Superintendent because, under school ed reform, the Superintendent has jurisdiction over the hiring and firing of school department employees, and the Superintendent will simply say "she's staying."

It's interesting that in an article that appeared in Saturday's Boston Herald, it was reported that both Mayor Hanlon and Superintendent Foresteire did not return phone calls to comment on the piece being presented by Alderman Smith. Or maybe it's not so interesting . . . maybe it's just . . . predictable.

Here's an idea for those of us looking for justice. See how things play out on Monday. We're sticking to our predictions outlined above. If our predictions should play out . . . calls to the District Attorney's office and the Attorney General's office could be in order. After all . . . Martha Coakley is running for AG; Tom Reilly is running for Governor; we're the people who'll be voting. Can they afford to ignore our calls for justice?