To the editor:
This is an open letter to Mayor Kirk:
Having been a resident here for the last 17 years — worked as a School Department employee for the last six, personally witnessed the idiotic political games played by the "You're not the boss of me" crowd, and been astonished at the short sightedness in the city's administrations, you have still managed to get me shaking my head.
I am speaking of your metamorphosis into a "Look what I did" politician, from the person elected promising to do the right thing.
I speak as a person who had worked with and for you as mayor, a School Committee member, and community advocate. Despite having very different views, I supported your honesty and forthrightness. I am truly disappointed in what I believe you have become; a self-aggrandizing, status seeking, self-promoting politician.
As the past food service director, we — the staff and I — had been advocating for a point of service (computer based program used to track sales, unpaid balances, plan purchasing, production, and generally make the program more efficient) system for the School Lunch Program, for the previous six years.
The ultimate purpose of the system was to make the deficit-carrying Lunch Program more financially viable. The cost was approximately $20,000.
You met (in March I believe) with three hourly members of program staff to discuss their concerns about the unpaid balances with the Lunch Program and the staff cuts made last September (2009) in preparation for the POS System.
You played dumb regarding the POS system; a subject we had discussed personally on more than one occasion. Yet you had the temerity to put hourly employees in the position of trying to influence school administration decisions. You told them that if a certain $52,000 moved around in the school accounts to address your concerns, you would be happy to release $100,000 in funding.
You and/or members of your administration finally agreed, through negotiations, that the funding of the purchase was to come from the non-taxpayer funded cable account (established for improving the technology in the city-balance over $150,000). When the schools twice did what you asked (in April), you or your minions) refused to release the money for the POS program. All requests for the account numbers went unanswered.
The latest development in this saga is what really troubles me. Instead of being true to your agreement, you added the POS system project to your taxpayer-funded "Emergency List".
The list addresses "surprises" to your administration resulting from the change in supervision of the school buildings.
You insisted that the schools contribute $45,000 to the $195,000 fund request. You effectively moved the $20,000 cost of the POS to the taxpayer funded school budget by taking money from the schools, instead of using the Comcast funded account at no cost to the taxpayers.
When the School Committee became aware of your intent, they moved to purchase the system immediately themselves. You put your mayoral foot down — it was your list and no one but you was going to change it.
When the issue arose within city Budget and Finance, your chief of staff, Jim Duggan, threw a similar fit stating that your office was in control of the list.
You got your way. The schools funded the purchase. You get to take the credit as "champion" of a project of which you were unaware, by your own statements, prior to March.
This leaves only one conclusion, you intend to assume full credit for the purchase and installation of the program. You took $43,000 from the school budget, only so that you could give $20,000 back.
You cannot champion a process with which you had absolutely nothing to do; not the research, vetting process, proposal process, selection process, or review process. You did not even pay for it in the manner agreed! The DPW is paying for school technology via the work order account! That's clever.
I suggest, mayor, that you are no longer the person we elected. Your machinations verge on obfuscation, supported by the clumsy way of handling the Charter school issue — while kicking School Committee members under the bus — show where you have gone.
It is not all about you! All the actions serve to demonstrate how you have become the quintessential "Look what I did" politician.
RICHARD KELLEHER
Gloucester
