I watched the City Council meeting when they had to make a very hard decision and terminate the City Manager. It is one of the hardest decisions any council has to make.
I was extremely disappointed by the rude comments of a former Mayor and council member. Former Mayor Paul Monette scolded the mayor and city council for being appalling, lacking transparency and trying to secretly hold this meeting. Former council member Melissa Pettersson also scolded the council for lacking procedure and orchestrating a scheme, by policy, to be able to fire someone.
SHAME ON BOTH OF YOU.
Of all people, former council members should know that executive sessions held to discuss employees are held in private. They know the council cannot make public the reasons for terminating someone. They know this is done to protect the employee by not making public whatever information, issues or reasons why the council decided to take this action. They do not know what actions were taken previously to avoid having to dismiss an employee. They know the council cannot discuss what actions were taken to give this employee a chance to correct this action.
So, they have no knowledge as to how long this action was discussed or why this action was taken. When they were in office they also were blamed of lack of transparency. They know how it feels to have information and discussions they obtained in “Executive session” that they could not reveal to the public for an action they took.
From what I have seen they both have not been supportive of the mayor and council since they themselves left office. The current mayor and council have uncovered a debt of approximately $800K that these two former council members left to the new mayor and council. These 2 former members have also been accused of deleting public emails after leaving office, which is a total lack of transparency. Unfortunately, this is not the first time these two have attacked the current mayor and council.
So again, I say SHAME ON YOU BOTH .
I have spoken to some of the current council members and can assure you that this was an extremely hard and painfully decision. It is made harder when former city leaders pile on unfounded accusations.
Our current council is made up of really good honest people that are just trying to do their best for basically no compensation. They work really hard and we should trust that the information that led them to this decision was heartbreaking for them also.
Walk a mile in their shoes.
Support your council – they work hard for you.
Respectfully,
Charlie Pronto
Former mayor and city council member
