Many questions, few answers
Toolbox
By TOM SOMERS - Published: October 15, 2009
The elected leaders of the City of Montpelier lost $400,000 of taxpayers' money. Over the course of three years they have developed a tale whereby they bear no responsibility, where there is no accountability, whereby a heartfelt "sorry" and "hopefully we will learn from this" wipes the slate clean. I don't think so. Our councilors and city manager are not third-graders, and we are not fools. Perhaps the next time my property taxes are due, I will send in a little note to William Fraser saying, "I am sorry, gosh, I lost the property tax money speculating on maple syrup in Saudi Arabia. Hopefully, we can learn from this." Had they been directors of a corporation, they would have most certainly have been sued in their personal capacities for restitution of the money. Had they been CEOs of local banks or credit unions, they would have been run out of town.
But these city councilors and city manager act as if they are above reproach. The council members are astonishingly and embarrassing full of malarkey when they explain how they lost $400,000 without responsibility. It is as if some invisible demon or, better yet, a team of zombies snuck into City Hall and cooked the books. Sadly, this is not true.
First, Mayor Mary Hooper condescends that there is a "decision tree." Oh my! We all know that Hooper is pointing a finger of blame at William Fraser, who has managed our fair city for years, and sits atop this purported "decision tree." Second, there is Councilor Tom Golanka, in his best Sgt. Schultz impression, saying he really doesn't know whether the right decisions were made. One can almost hear the reruns of Hogan's Heroes in the background with the hapless Schultz muttering, "I know nothing. I see nothing." Councilor Jim Sheridan, in another profile of courage, states that he wanted to go public with this chicanery, but the other councilors would not let him. Does Sheridan lack the courage of his convictions? He had every right and duty to blow the whistle on his colleagues.
The best is left for last. City Manager William Fraser used taxpayer money to buy a full page of this paper to write a defense worthy of the Plato's apologia. He answered the questions he wanted to answer, but left a number unanswered.
For example, why did the city contract with an impecunious contractor from Newport? Wasn't the merest background check performed on this company? Why was someone so plainly incompetent writing checks of this magnitude unsupervised? While Fraser assures us that measures have been taken to prevent this kind of negligent supervision and management from happening again, why wasn't such a mechanism in place three to four years ago? Because Fraser was not on the ball, that's why.
And the City Council, so confident in Manager for Life Fraser failed to properly supervise him.
Why has the city not sued the accounting firm of Sullivan Powers & Co., for not even noticing the huge overpayment to the contractor in its annual accounting of city books? That is why Sullivan Powers & Co., presumably has insurance: because people make mistakes and insurance is a business necessity for operations dealing in large amounts of cash.
Which brings me to the next inquiry: why wasn't the individual writing the checks properly bonded and insured? The answer of course is obvious. Fraser failed to properly supervise city finances, was grossly negligent in failing to do so and should be fired.
The council apparently had no clue what it was doing in trying to get the money back from the contractor, and then hid the scandal from the public under the pretext of trying to stop a run on the contractor's assets. There is no doubt that anyone who was a creditor of the troubled contractor's was already making a run on his assets. This council does not appear to have enough sense to manage this city with any hint of competence or integrity. If the council members had any sense of honor at all, they would have all resigned. Honor is a scarce commodity among cronies.
Finally, all of this leads to two final questions that we need to answer: what else has the council hidden from us? and how much money has been lost in other acts of incompetence?
The late H.L. Mencken, a keen observer of politicians, once wrote that, "democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard." Mencken is right, yet again. Montpelier can do better.
Tom Somers is an attorney who lives in Montpelier.
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