Penta's Points - Officer Monty, the new Police/Fire Stations, Burke's Lunacy!

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PENTA POINTS

A Year later … is Medford heading in the right direction?

City employee social media policy still an issue …

Back in March of 2016, Medford’s Mayor Burke assembled a full blown Boston media blitz against a Medford Police Officer for his private sharing of someone else’s Facebook posting. It was at that time that Medford’s Mayor became somewhat incensed that a local Medford Police Officer would post what he did. The mayor felt his posting was offensive to a particular segment of society. As a result, Mayor Burke said one year ago this month that she would be implementing an all-city employee policy as to what employee social media postings should be sensitive to as to postings. To date, there is still no policy in place. To have made a police officer be publicly chided for his private, sharing posting and then to say that there would be an all-city employee policy regarding city employees social media postings as a result and it has yet to happen leaves one suspect to think the Mayor just didn’t like the officer. 
Financial stakes in Medford politics …Risky or not?
 

Medford Mayor Burke has recently disclosed her $ 22 million dollar personal plan for where a new Medford police station should be. She made this determination with: 

1) no written report that detailed the time, places and people involved and any projected cost analysis, 

2) no police union representation as part of the Mayor’s determination, 

3) no city council involvement, 

4) no report of any state or federal grant applications sought, 

5) no detailed analysis of what city bonds are being concluded and how much impact their re-use will have on the new station proposal, and 

6) what proposed impact will this have on the city’s tax rate without having to argue for a Proposition 21/2 override.
 

The mayor’s announcement has subsequently brought to light the city’s $110,000 private, consultant, final report of 2014 that investigated a new police and fire station as a combined building facility as was built in 1962. The many hundreds of pages of the report went into a myriad of examples as to the pros and cons.
By choosing the academy location and the dismantling of the fire training tower, the mayor has now involved the fire department as a component to the issue. 
 

According to Fire Chief Gilberti’s comment at the February 28th city council meeting, he stated he was not informed of the mayor intention until the day after the Mayor’s press conference of February 8th.
 

This matter now begs the following question(s) as to what are the Mayor’s financial priorities: 1) the city’s $28 million dollar retirement debt obligation, 2) the multi million dollars of repair needed at Medford High, 3) a new $20 million dollar proposed Medford Public Library with a Medford 40% financial commitment if approved by the State Board of Library Commissioners, 4) moving the fire training academy to a regional place as the mayor suggested until a future re-build in Medford. This would cause Medford fire personnel and equipment to leave our city for practice with need for our City back-up at an additional cost to our fire operation, and 5) there are million dollar plus needs for elementary and middle school repairs and upgrades. 
 

Let us not forget the huge cost that will be necessary to fix and repair our many streets that are in deplorable condition.
 

As a result of the fire department firefighter’s expressing their issues before the city council and in a February 28th letter addressed to the city council, the mayor made a personal commitment to the fire department personnel to have them involved for whatever recommendations need be made for a new fire station headquarters/training tower. 
 

But conversely, Mayor Burke completely ignored the Medford Police Officer’s union membership for their participation regarding a police station and its location. 
The issues are many as this proposed station comes into consideration but it is this city council that needs to address the mayor and demand a seat at the table for an active participatory position. If this mayor continues to not include city council priority and funding input, and they vote for her requests anyway, then the city council has relegated their council position(s) to nothing more than being rubber stamps for the mayor. 

That should be good grounds for re-evaluating the re-election of Medford City Council candidates this coming fall.

Respectfully submitted,

Robert M. Penta, Former City Councillor