LaFond Divided
Loyalties Violates Contract & Carver Town Bylaw
Rick
LaFond could not resist violating our laws once again before leaving
for greener pastures. He is now the official Town Manager of
Abington at the same time he has an employment agreement with the
Town of Carver. As always fixcarver provides the proof visit
Abingtons website by clicking the link below.
Town of Carver
Bylaw section 3.3.3.4. “The Town Administrator shall devote
full time to the office and shall not hold any other public office,
elected or appointive, nor engage in any business or occupation
during such service, unless such action is approved in advance by
the Board of Selectmen.”
The employment
agreement between the Town of Carver and Rick LaFond states “The Town Administrator may voluntarily terminate his
employment by providing sixty (60) days written notice to the Board
of Selectmen delivered by receipt requested certified mail.”
Fixcarver has learned that the letter of resignation is dated
4/26/13 hardly the required 60 days notice required in the contract.
The agreement further states ““It is expected thet the Town
Administrator shall average a minimum of forty hours per week”
If he’s working for both Abington and Carver it’s difficult to
imagine that he’s meeting the working hours required under the
agreement.
Fixcarver looks forward to hearing more
creative explanations from a Town Administrator adept at violating
our bylaws, state law, employment agreements and other rules that
are supposed to apply to everyone. Good luck to the residents of
Abington.
Fixcarver also looks forward to town officials
acting to enforce the laws of our town and its contracts.
In God We Trust Not
Steve Dewhurst
Public access to records is a valuable and welcome addition to the
town’s website. Fixcarver is glad to have these records available to
the public 24/7 without interrupting public officials. The public is
well served with the addition of these capabilities and he is to be
commended for volunteering his time to make this a reality.
Steve Dewhurst can’t leave well enough alone. His website committee
could have stopped at providing the public with open, honest and
timely access to public records such as meeting minutes and meeting
agendas but they chose instead to propose a subscription service.
This service will allow interested citizens to be notified of
meetings and events happening at town hall and throughout Carver.
This proposal simply goes too far.
Selectmen Marone was correct in calling into question privacy
concerns with the subscription service Dewhurst and his committee
created. Marone did not go nearly far enough. Other subscription
services in Carver have been abused by Dewhurst and his supporters.
He has yet to explain how email addresses of a number of citizens
wound up on his wife’s (Selectmen Sarah Hewins) campaign email
lists. The connect-ed system used by the Carver Public Schools has
been abused and has been the subject of numerous complaints of
political abuse and bias. Sarah Hewins has loudly preached of the
need for better communication in pushing the school building
project. It is not difficult to imagine school supporters turning
this latest subscription service into, yet another, political
machine for use by school supporters and others.
Politics is best left to political campaigns. Subscription services
which cannot be controlled either from a privacy perspective or
which can manipulated for political advantage must never be
tolerated on government owned websites. Carver government officials
hacked into Selectmen Mike O’Donnell’s computer behind his back to
satisfy one of Steve Dewhurst’s public records fishing expeditions.
He now asks us to trust him with a subscription service. Isn’t that
special!
Audit/Not Committee
The audit committee that has been busy snooping into
the business of Treasurer Collector Jack Franey failed to swear in a
majority of its members in violation of MGL c40 s107. Committee
Chairman Bruce Kaiser, and members Theressa Eby and Peter Allegrini
were sworn in early 2012 but former Selectmen chairmen Ron Clarke,
Jack Angley and John Cotter were not sworn in until this week. The
committee conducted business in violation of the provisions of
section 107 which state that “every appointed member of every board
or commission of a town, and every other elected officer and every
appointed officer of a town, shall also, before entering upon his
official duties, be sworn to the faithful performance thereof.”
Fixcarver believes that the political appointees that failed to be
sworn in would have choked on the word faithful.
We await explanations and excuses for yet another violation of state
law by LaFond and Company. You can expect to hear words like
inadvertent and deminimus to explain away the unexplainable. The
LaFond spin machine is in the damage control mode with good reason.
Fixcarver expects to file open meeting complaints charging that this
committee (defined by selectmen to be a six member committee) met
without a properly qualified quorum.
It’s time to end the work of this illegal band of bullies and let
Jack Franey do the job the people of Carver elected him to do.
Selectmen Marone
Exposes LaFond Lie
During the debate over the reappointment of Kopelman
and Paige as Carver Town Counsel Rick LaFond mislead the Board of
Selectmen. LaFond indicated that a motion not to reappoint K&P would
leave the Town without counsel. Selectmen Marone quoted chapter and
verse from the regulations requiring any counsel to remain in place
during the transition.
As always fixcarver provides the text quoted by Selectmen Marone
from the American Bar Associations Rule 1.16 Declining Or
Terminating Representation “(d) Upon termination of representation,
a lawyer shall take steps to the extent reasonably practicable to
protect a client's interests, such as giving reasonable notice to
the client, allowing time for employment of other counsel,
surrendering papers and property to which the client is entitled….”
Town Administrator LaFond has an obligation to provide unbiased
professional advise to the Board of Selectmen. In this instance
politics again trumped professionalism.
Hewins, once again rushes to the defense of Kopelman and Paige
suggesting they be invited to sing for their supper yet again. This
time she will not have the votes to pull the plug on anyone. K&P
just might have met their match… a fair discussion of their
performance.
Fixcarver.com has always advocated on the side of the citizens of
Carver. We continue to advocate for our citizens by appealing to
everyone to help us fill the empty shelves of our food pantry. Bring
your non perishable or canned food items to Town Hall on Friday
between 6 AM and 10AM or any normal work day 8-4. Unfortunately the
need in our town exceeds the supply of food. We must not let others
go without. We appeal to all of our supporters and opponents alike
this is non political. Our friends neighbors and even our opponents
deserve three squares meals a day.
Carver Town Counsel
Sued by Their Own Employee
According to an article in Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly Leonard
Kopelman and his firm Kopleman & Paige have been sued for allegedly
not allowing Kopelman’s personal assistant, Patricia Elkins, to take
time off under FMLA when she was stricken with cancer.
The article states that the attorneys suing K&P, like Fixcarver.com,
think the rules apply to everyone. Rebecca Pontikes and Tara Swartz
partners in a small Boston firm regularly sue other law firms for
employment discrimination and other violations. It continues “Most
lawyers agree that having so many cases against other law firms is
unusual and risky and comes with a price in the legal community” The
attorney representing K&P don’t seem appreciate being on the
receiving end of a lawsuit. Attorney Shepherd is quoted in the
article as stating “To accuse a different type of employer of, say,
discrimination is one thing, but to accuse a law firm of violating
laws seems more serious. We couldn’t agree more!
In a Town with multiple pending discrimination cases it’s advisable
to retain a law firm with significant employment discrimination
experience. One would hope their experience would not, however,
include experience as a defendant.
Templeton Boots
Kopleman & Paige
Fixcarver researchers have uncovered a video of a July 9, 2012
Selectmens meeting in Templeton Massachusetts at which Kopelman and
Paige was replaced as Town Counsel in a unanimous vote. The meeting
had to be relocated due to the large turn out. Inquiring minds will
note that none of the disgruntled residents are named either Paul
Johnson or Dawn Padovani yet many complaints are strikingly similar
to problems to here in Carver. Selectmen Ward and Hewins might wish
to review the video. For those who don’t wish to muddle through the
entire video start at 5 min 30 seconds and watch the last ten
minutes of Kopleman & Paiges tenure and you will recognize many of
the issues we face in carver.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBvksTVXklU&feature=youtu.be
We also uncovered a local blog from Templeton which discusses some
of their issues.
http://templetonwatch.blogspot.com/2012/02/who-exactly-does-kopelman-paige-work.html
The video and blog demonstrate clearly that the people of fixcarver
and other Carver critics of K&P are neither alone nor crazy.
Rehoboth Boots K&P
Yet another town has given K&P the boot. No credible Dawn Padovani
or Paul Johnson sightings have been reported in the Rehoboth Area.
The Carver School Committee met with the
representatives of vendor that conducted the controversial school
project survey on Monday June 18. Apparently the town spent $15,000
to find out that some survey participants failed to vote on the
non-binding referendum election. Another stunning result reported on
the survey is that 84 percent of respondents were either parents of
school children or school employees. Fixcarver believes that this
surprising super majority was driven by multiple annoying misuse of
the schools Connect-ed emergency call system by the school
administration. Fixcarver learned that only three paper surveys were
turned in. This should surprise no one because paper surveys were
restricted to those who specifically requested them. Citizen
requests for paper surveys for family members were refused unless
the family member appeared in person to request them.
Survey results demonstrated the clear bias of the questions and the
methods of distribution and advertizing which were targeted at
demographics friendly to school supporters.
The unscientific nature of the results are underscored by a quote
from the survey itself “survey participants do not constitute
representative sample of community members, staff or parents”
Fixcarver therefore is not going to dignify an unbiased survey by
posting the results.
K12 representatives appear ready to continue the process with focus
group sessions designed to sell the project this fall. Their
recommendations included focus groups nominated by school committee
members, hardly a recipe for unbiased results.
If the process to date is any indication Carver is headed to yet
another divisive failed vote. The voters of Carver should ignore
rhetoric and focus on actions. Until and unless the schools stop and
their supporters stop standing in the way of reasonable efforts to
set aside money under the levy limit there will be no school
building project. Efforts by school supporters to steal the $700,000
unexpected Nstar transformer money a couple of years ago for raises
and their refusal to fully fund the school capital building
stabilization fund at this years Town Meeting were counterproductive
and wrong.
School supporters are in the unenviable position of having shouted
down the last three attempts to reduce this projects tax impacts. We
will not budge from our insistence on significant compromise before
another vote.
Carver Selectman Sarah Hewins, Ph.
D. Wacky
Letter to AGO
Are you for real Sarah??????? Are
you above our State Laws?
Fixcarver obtained the following data from
http://www.princeton.edu/sociology/graduate-program/graduate-alumni/
Pertaining to the qualifications of Conservation Agent Sarah Hewins.
Hewins and her supporters refer to Sarah Hewins by the Title of
Doctor, a title which she earned at Princeton University in 1991
which we do not dispute nor minimize. We dispute the relevance of
this title as well as her education background to her work as
Conservation Agent for the Town of Carver.
As usual Fixcarver presents the facts relevant to Dr. Hewins
background and education.. According to the above website there is a
Sarah G Hewins class of 1991 who did her Doctoral dissertation
(quotation from the above website) “Sarah G. Hewins *91 S*82
Ph.D. Dissertation: The Backstretch: Social Structure and Community
in the Stable Area of the Thoroughbred Racing Industry” If you wish expertise in the field of sociology pertaining to
Thoroughbred Racing contact Ms. Hewins. If you wish expertise in the
field of Conservation contact someone with a PHD in that field. The
main stretch here is the adoption of a title designed to mislead
people into thinking the PHD somehow applies to her present work.
Your
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