On Sun, 20 Jul 2003, Dan Gittelsohn wrote: > There is no doubt that the taxpayers in this town deserve to > hold a person or people accountable for all of the problems in town. > As it stands now no one is held accountable.
he town manager is an employee of the town, and his job depends on the will of the Board of Selectman. If you believe his performance is inadequate, or that he is inadequately supervised, and the majority of the Board of Selectmen disagree, you already have the option of making this a campaign issue and supporting candidates who agree with your point of view. What we do by hiring a town manager is recognize that elected officials may be the voice of the people, but they are not necessarily professionally competent to run a town. By professionalizing the position in the community and allowing elected officials to judge the results, rather than expecting them to do the day-to-day job itself, we attempt to address both the issues of competence and of public control. Electing a town manager would put an elected official in charge without any assurance of professional competency. I do not see how this is an improvement over having the the town managed by the selectmen, or how it differs from having a mayor, two ideas the town has rejected in the past. Rene Mandel Pct. 3 To unsubscribe, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with body "unsubscribe frambors" (the subject is ignored).
