Left In Lowell

I give up!

18 Responses to “I give up!”

1. Lynne Says:
   May 6th, 2008 at 9:36 am

   How many violations does that make for the SC and CC this year already?

   My god, people, LEARN THE GODDAMNED ETHICS RULES PLEASE!

2. kami Says:
   May 6th, 2008 at 9:39 am

   Hmmmmm….. Leaks in Executive session by the School Committee. Leaks in Executive Session by the City Council. Who is the common demoninator? Do the math folks

3. K-R-S Says:
   May 6th, 2008 at 9:58 am

   The question is…will they stick to their “Self Policing”?

4. Eleanor Rigby Says:
   May 6th, 2008 at 12:32 pm

   Didn’t the SC vote to have the AG or DA launch an investigation into these executive session leaks after new Superintendent Chris Scott’s package was leaked “in the future”?

   That would mean such an automatic review would begin with this leak.

   Can the solicitor automatically send a request to the AG or DA now?

5. Anonymous Says:
   May 6th, 2008 at 4:52 pm

   Mimi- This didn’t happen last night. It happened last week.

6. Eleanor Rigby Says:
   May 7th, 2008 at 1:10 pm

   Anon, it doesn’t matter if the meeting was last week, last night or twenty minutes ago. Chris Scott, the Sun employee not the superintendent, wrote:

   “The Sun has learned that members of the School Committee voted unanimously in executive session…”

   That means someone violated the secrecy of the executive session and calls into play that motion the SC passed (I think) calling for an immediate outside investigation into who leaked it!

7. Anonymous Says:
   May 7th, 2008 at 3:37 pm

   So are we NEVER supposed to know whether or not she will be getting paid for sick time she didn’t use? Shouldn’t that be public since it is taxpayer $ ?

8. Eleanor Rigby Says:
   May 7th, 2008 at 5:18 pm

   Certainly, but leaking something from executive session is not the way we should be finding out and is a violation of trust!

   As a matter of fact I question whether a vote like this done in executive session is even legal.

   I believe they can go into executive session to discuss and negotiate a contract and personnel issues, but any vote has to be done in public and the contract then available for public inspection.

9. Mimi Says:
   May 7th, 2008 at 5:47 pm

   Anon:

   Yes, we should know what the School Committee decided and how much the superintendent will receive. But this is how it should have happened, tonight at the regular scheduled SC meeting (after they salute the LHS Band), SC Connie Martin, Chairperson of the Personnel Sub-Committee, gives a report on the Sub-Committee meeting, the Executive Session one. If other SCs want to give their interpretation or opinion on that meeting, they are all welcomed to do it at that time.

   The report is given to the public in the light of day and not by hiding in the shadows and whispering to the media.

   If the SC is not going to respect the rules that apply to executive sessions, don’t have them.

10. Eleanor Rigby Says:
    May 7th, 2008 at 8:48 pm

    Mimi wrote:
    “If the SC is not going to respect the rules that apply to executive sessions, don’t have them.”

    I would take it a step further, and say if the SC is not going to uphold the rules of Executive Session then it needs to be brought to the appropriate prosecutorial office’s attention for action!

11. Anonymous Says:
    May 8th, 2008 at 12:24 pm

    I want a job where I can get paid TWICE for going to work when I am NOT SICK

12. Lynne Says:
    May 8th, 2008 at 1:02 pm

    A big WTF to you on that one…but, whatever.

13. Eleanor Rigby Says:
    May 8th, 2008 at 7:38 pm

    Anon, I totally agree! Sick time should be used when you are sick and guess what, there needs to be a cap. I work for a private enterprise and I have a very liberal sick time policy, but it is not something that can not be used if I am fired or leave the company.

    I can accumulate 130 days of sick time based on my years of employment. I can not “cash them in” and if I use them in excess I need proof that I’m sick!

    Vacation is different, it is part of compensation and unused vacation time (although it can be capped) is to be paid. According to the Massachusetts Attorney General website payment is to be made whether you have a contract or not!.

    Now, here is the problem that I see. According to the report in the Sun re: the “vote” during executive session, they changed the contract. It seems to me that unless KBB agrees to those changes then the contract approved, signed sealed and delivered in early April is the one that is in effect!

    So now my question is why didn’t the SC actually read the changes to the contract before approving them in the first place?

    LAZY? INCOMPETENT? NEED TO BE REPLACED?

    Sick time is to be used when you or your family is sick. It should never be “bought back” for anyone in city employ!

14. Eleanor Rigby Says:
    May 11th, 2008 at 11:18 am

    I guess if they wait long enough, everything becomes legal!

    “…THOSE SEETHING over the perception that the Lowell School Committee last week breached the sanctity of executive session (again) can dismount from their high horses for now.

    No breach occurred, City Solicitor Christine O’Connor opined at last week’s meeting.

    The question surrounded information provided to The Sun regarding the committee’s unanimous vote earlier this month to strip outgoing Superintendent of Schools Karla Brooks Baehr of nearly $24,000 in sick-day buyback that was not negotiated into her contract.

    The city was abuzz over whether members of the committee would call in the district attorney’s office to investigate the perceived breach, as they had agreed to do following the prior incident, when the contents of incoming Superintendent Chris Augusta Scott’s contract were leaked to the paper.

    Several committee members expressed “outrage” that colleagues had reverted to their old ways so quickly.

    Committee member Connie Martin was prepared to offer up her phone records to prove she’s not the leak.

    In the end, it was all very anticlimatic. No investigation. No reporters going to jail to protect their sources. Ho-hum.

    O’Connor explained that following the executive session, the results no longer were secret because Baehr was present and the matter was resolved the night of the meeting, ending the executive-session privilege.

    In the case of Scott’s contract, O’Connor hadn’t even completed a draft and the content of the preliminary contract had not been ratified before the news hit the streets, hot off the presses…”

15. Anonymous Says:
    May 11th, 2008 at 10:24 pm

    Apparently you guys don’t know the GODDAMNED ETHICS RULES as well as you think you do.

16. Anonymous Says:
    May 12th, 2008 at 7:51 am

    For years and years, every time some big shot govt employee leaves a job, they get some gigantic payout for “unused” (yea, sure) sick days and vacations. The helpless hiring authority (usually a school committee) throws up their hands and says “What can we do? It’s in the contract. Some previous board gave the benifit. We’re not responsible”

    Now, for once, the departing Supt. is NOT due this money, but the SC decides to alter the contract specifically so she can get it anyway!!

    WTF Lynne??? THIS IS WHAT STARTED ALL THIS BROU-HA-HA. What the SC did is wrong wrong wrong. Taxpayers reading about budget shortfalls rightly ask “Why is the city paying out this money if they don’t have to?”

    For the record I personally feel that the Baehr did a very difficult job pretty well. She was run out of town by a cabal of idiots. But enough is enough with the huge payouts. Stop putting them in the contracts in the first place, and don’t add them after the fact just to poke some political rival in the eye.

17. Lynne Says:
    May 12th, 2008 at 10:23 am

    Oh, like the ethics rules that say you can’t vote/discuss/bring up a motion if you’re an abutter? Or the one that says that executive session are not to be leaked? Those ones? Give me a break.

    RE payouts - from what I understand, it’s something every assistant super has gotten. It doesn’t seem all that uncommon. Even in the private world, in decent companies anyways, you get at least some of the time you haven’t spend on sick days or vacations back if you are laid off for whatever reason, or even sometimes if you leave the job, depending on your contract. The reasoning is that you earned that time off, and you worked instead of taking it, therefore outputting more productivity and costing, basically, less than you would have otherwise. I don’t see how it’s unfair to at least keep the same standards applied to other situations in dealing with how their boss gets treated now. And seeing as she was, as you put it, run out by a cabal of idiots, even though she wasn’t officially “laid off” she basically was.

    Now, I agree, there’s a budget issue (though the issue is so much larger than the amount being bandied about, and getting that money back doesn’t really change the dire situation at all), but this back and forth, rescind and change methodology by the SC just makes us look like terrible people to work for, doesn’t it? If I were the new super, I’d be getting a little antsy and maybe even thinking about keeping my tenure in Lowell short, right about now, given all the crap we’ve put her predecessor through.

18. Anonymous Says:
    May 12th, 2008 at 12:18 pm

    I don’t think anybody begrudges anybody accrued but unused vacation. I’m pretty sure state law requires that anybody is entitled to that.

    Sick time is another matter entirely.

    Also, that amount of money could pay for quite a few police patrols being curtailed due to the high price of gas.

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