Medford City Council tires of arrogant Mayoral hubris

(the headline was mine, not Matt Reid's
-Nick McNulty, Medford GOP)

Medford City Council: Reports better late than never?

Medford -
By Matthew Reid/mreid@cnc.com
Wed Dec 02, 2009, 09:00 AM EST

While the City Council spent nearly an hour last week talking about why members won’t add to Medford’s debt because they feel they are ignored by the city’s administration, the group did receive a slew of reports that were long overdue.

During seven of the last 11 council meetings, at least one councilor has made reference to resolutions sent to the administration that have never been answered, some of which go back as far as two years.

But before last Tuesday’s meeting, the council received more than 100 pages of reports from various department heads, including the city engineer, solicitor, finance director and Mayor Michael J. McGlynn himself.

Some on the council believe McGlynn is finally getting the hint that the group is fed up with the status quo, but that “shoveling answers” in bulk defeats the purpose.

“When we got here this evening we received answers to papers that we asked about in October of 2008,” said Councilor Paul Camuso. “The people of this city deserve better than that.”

Councilor Robert Maiocco went as far as holding the stack of papers up at the meeting, to show the people watching on local cable how much information was given to the council such a short time before the meeting. He said asking members to absorb more than 100 pages of information in such a short amount of time was just as bad as having questions ignored.

“We’re supposed to read all of these tonight and then make intelligent and informed decisions on these issues on behalf of the taxpayers? I don’t think so,” Maiocco said. “The streets in this city regarding government are not one-way. Maybe some people think they are one-way, but they are two-ways as far as Councilor Maiocco thinks. It’s just a bad way to run a $130 million government.”

Related:Medford City Council Council tables requests until mayor agrees to meeting