Much Ado About Nothing - The Alleged Open Meeting Law Violation

It's hard to understand why John Hanlon would publicly embarrass himself by accusing the City Council of violating the open meeting law because they signed a petition that was distributed by Alderman Joe McGonagle. To make 25 enemies on such a pathetic little charge has to go down in history as one of the worst all-time local political missteps, not to mention one of the more childish temper tantrums we've seen coming from an elected official in quite some time. The man has only been in office for five months . . . and he's already managed to turn the City Council against him? That has to be some sort of record.

Who is advising this man?

The Open Meeting Guidelines can be found here:

http://www.cbsys.ago.state.ma.us/pubs/oml.htm

The answer to the question "how can a petition drive intended to show legislative disapproval of the TDK electric generation project can be twisted into a violation of the open meeting law" can only be found in whatever resembles logic to Mayor Hanlon. Petitions course through the state house and the congressional offices all the time - are all these elected officials in violation of the open meeting law? Of course not. This is a ham-handed attempt to put the city council "in its place." The full court press that Everett citizens have been treated to in the past couple of weeks is a familiar public relations tactic - allege all kinds of illegalities in the paper, and then the noisemakers will shut up and dissent will be squelched. In this case, however, the tactic seems to have backfired. The Mayor cannot possibly expect a "spirit of cooperation" from the City Council now. And again, our local papers seem content to jump into this hole that the Mayor seems to be digging for himself, although at least the Independent did a little digging of its own and found out that Mayor Hanlon hasn't even filed a formal complaint with District Attorney Coakley's office. It will be interesting to see if the "written opinion" that Mayor Hanlon is expecting from Ms. Coakley's office ever shows up.

Unfortunately for John Hanlon, it would appear that neither Alderman McGonagle nor his colleagues are that unsophisticated as to cower in fear of this silly charge. No one believes for a minute that Martha Coakley would indulge Hanlon is this silliness without real evidence and the Mayor is going to have a hard time coming up with that, given that a meeting -- open or otherwise -- never took place. Each member was approached separately and asked if he/she would care to sign. No quorum - no violation.

Hopefully the Mayor is up for the fight he's started. The first return volley from the Aldermen can be found on page 3 of last Friday's Advocate, in which Aldermen McGonagle and DiPerri opposed the significant salary raises proposed for several city department heads. From what we hear, the budget hearings should be -- interesting -- with several city councilors playing "count the consultants" and "guess how many people work in the mayor's office." The Advocate also reported that Mayor Hanlon says that the $4.3 million dollar surplus that Mayor Ragucci left behind has dwindled to zero! Perhaps this is why the mayor was so quick to accept TDK's million bucks to put the electrical plant next to a city park.

Congratulations to Aldermen McGonagle and the other members of city government who stood up for the citizens of Everett and prevented a project that would have done far more harm than good. Everett has been a host community to enough of these types of projects, and it's about time that another community took on the burden.

Also - memo to Mayor Hanlon. George Bush just apologized to the country for saying "bring it on," and "dead or alive" during the war. The tough talk in Independent about the "rift" between you and city government is not the way to mend fences with people you're going to need in the upcoming months to keep this city operating. Put your seatbelt on, Mr. Mayor...'cause you're in for a bumpy ride!