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Monday, February 18, 2008

Behind the Scenes in Mayberry Town Hall


All is not well in Mayberry’s Town Hall. The sniping behind the backs of certain folks and the open warfare that occurred regarding last week’s political welfare appointments have caused tension and animosity.

The most embarrassing episode involved the Supervisor and Democratic Vice Chairman Ed Cassino whose appointment last week in another famous 4-1 vote, did not come without acrimony. One town hall employee said she witnessed Evers and Cassino “go at it” over whether he would get a town hall job. Evers apparently telling Cassino he was not needed, (That’s an understatement!) with Cassino angrily shouting back at Evers.

We surmise the job interview did not go well. Nevertheless, Evers apparently reluctantly voted to put the political patronage hire on the payroll as a laborer. His efforts to convince colleagues not to make the appointment apparently falling on deaf ears, Evers showed no guts by voting with his majority to appoint someone he neither likes or needs keeping an eye on him in town hall. Ironic since at the same time he accuses his collegues of having no guts because they won't pay Casale Excavating. Perception and perspective, hey?

The Soviets used to place “political” officers in key command positions in the military so that the Party could ensure that those in charge remained “loyal” to party doctrine. Of course they used to say it took more courage to retreat in the Soviet Army than to advance, because the Commisars were likely to shoot you on sight. We can’t wait to see who Commissar Cassino reports to because no one seems to want the duty and because everyone knows he is only there because of POLITICS, a position that comes with no job security. Cassino has "bragged" that he has a title of "Building Supervisor" which is certainly not the title he was appointed to as "Laborer". Time for one of those desk audits at Civil Service. Cassino replaced Joe Novack who worked outside, yes even in the bitter cold, fixing all those hydrants. So if Ed is not doing Novack's job than Ed has a new job we really did not need.
Nonetheless, Evers should recall that Commisar Cassino, along with his Chief Commisar, Party Chairman Jeff Spain, helped conduct Purge Trials of dissenters and those viewed as disloyal to party doctrine. Watch your step Mark.

Casale Payments Tabled, again.
One other Evers agenda item was paying Casale Excavating their retainage fees. This was Evers fourth attempt and once again he could not convince Spain or Desso to go along because they apparently fear acting before knowing what is to come in the State Comptroller’s Office Audit of the mismanaged contract. So rather than face another defeat, Evers tabled the resolution and demanded that no one in the audience try to speak about the issue during public comment.

Public Comment
Mark Evers paranoia is evident in his conduct of the meetings. He has tried to limit public comment in every way possible when he sees trouble from the audience. His insistence that all be strictly limited to 5 minutes at Thursday’s meeting exposed his fear and was in stark contrast to the days when he let his allies ramble endlessly to attack his enemies. Now with Evers so exposed on public issues, it is his enemies that have all the ammunition and cards to deal at him. Mr. Evers will learn that 5 minutes is more than enough time to expose his back side and zoom in with the camera.

2-2 Division in the Unholy Alliance
It is starting to shape up internally as a 2-2 split in the Conservative, Republican, Democratic alliances that secured 3 seats in the last election. Evers complains openly about Town Clerk Connolly trying to run the agenda through Al Spain. Many in the town offices snipe at Connolly behind her back as resentment looms over her tendency to meddle in everyone’s business. Spain seems to have Desso’s ear on many matters, Casale being most notable while Evers continues to have Kern mounted securely to a puppets dowel stick. About the only thing Evers can’t control is what often comes out of the mouth part. Whew! What you have to endure to get that vote, hey!

What Spain and Desso can take to heart is that Evers displeasure with their refusal to go along with his wishes on votes is not because he is right and they are necessarily wrong. His behind the scenes lambasting of each is instead based on his innate desire to get his way on everything, whether right or wrong. That’s the problem the prior board had to endure as Evers ignored laws and anything else that was an inconvenient truth in order to “beat” his opponents.

Al Spain learned that Thursday night as he was obviously set up into believing he was appointing people to the Comprehensive Plan Committee who were appointed to the existing committee. He became a victim of Evers deceitful nature and his failure to tell the truth on matters such as his illegal effort to place people on the committee without the required vote of the board as the appointing authority. Bottom line lesson for Spain and Desso is simply not to believe anything Evers says and seek independent verification of facts before talking positions. In essence boys, he lies like a rug!

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