By Mark Brighton
The current City Council, or as they are more affectionately called “The Boondoggle 9”, have accomplished absolutely nothing. Worse than that, they have been a force of ignorance, shortsightedness, and destruction.
They raised the budget 14.2 million dollars during the past two years and in addition they have spent an additional 4 million out of the committed fund balance for a combined total 18.2 million dollars of increases.
This is according to the latest financial update by the City of Portsmouth on October 16th of this year.
This is a taxpayer’s nightmare come true because they have also created 36 new positions. The City Manager tried to ameliorate this by saying only, and I repeat only, 27.1 positions have been filled.
Who the heck does she think she is kidding? The taxpayers will be stuck with all those pensions, and don’t forget they all have medical insurance.
This is the Council that tried to ram the conversion of Sherburne School into workforce housing, completely without regard to the affect on the Pannaway Manor neighborhood and unmediatable road congestion.
Mayor Deaglan McEachern and Councilor Andrew Bagley have put in their campaign literature that that is precisely what they want to have happen. But then, it doesn’t affect their neighborhoods.
Councilor Kate Cook wants to deny 1st amendment rights to family members of those serving on quasi-judicial boards by rewriting the Ethics Ordinance. She doesn’t understand the Right to Free Speech and wants to gag opponents. She seems to have Portsmouth confused with China and Russia. Or perhaps, she is simply completely ignorant of our Constitution.
It makes you wonder what other little gems she has in this rewrite.
Can you imagine the lawsuits that would result? How long would it take for the ACLU to get involved? They represent clients for free, our own legal department does not represent us for free. We pay for this stupidity.
And last but not least, is Councilor Tabor. He blabbed in the public realm information which he learned in a non-public setting, a violation of State Statute.
He was quickly taken to Superior Court. One of the litigants was this letter writer. The judge eventually ruled that as taxpayers we did not have standing.
You read that right. As taxpayers we do not have standing. Talk about a pyrrhic victory. Taxpayers have no standing against our own elected officials who theoretically answer to us.
The only standing we seem to have is at the ballot box. Use it wisely.
