Things get weirder and weirder with the Dukes County Commission here on peaceful Martha's Vineyard. I wrote a few weeks ago about the willingness of twelve people to compete to serve as airport commissioner, a truly thankless job. Well, the County Commission appointed five of these candidates to the airport commission. The newly appointed commissioners appear well-qualified.
BUT - and there seems to be always a but with the Dukes County Commission. There is confusion as to whether there are three or five vacancies on the airport commission. It seems that on January 11 three commissioners were reappointed. However, because two of them did not present their appointment letter to the proper authorities in time, their appointment was rescinded. Now, one of the two has asked the district attorney to look into the matter.
The matter is the issuance of the appointment letters. One of the reappointees, who happens to be chair of the County Commission, picked up his letter the day of the meeting at which the three were reappointed. After signing that letter, the County Manager became too busy to sign the appointment letters for the other two. In fact, he never signed the letters because at a meeting on January 17 the County Commission voted to rescind the appointments of the out-of-favor two.
Confused? You'd think that these jobs paid big bucks. They, like most of the government offices of the Vineyard, pay exactly $0. Go figure.
1 comment:
Al -
While the cosmetics are terrible, as best I can tell there was no malfeasance involved.
That said, all three letters should have been prepared at the same time, presumably the following morning.
I have followed very closely the interviews for Airport Commissioner and the appointments made last Wednesday evening. All 5 candidates selected are highly qualified.
Hopefully they will all be able to serve. One or more may be found to have a conflict of interest, when their appointment is reviewed by the State Ethics Commission. (NOTE: The same can be said of the two commissioners whose appointment was rescinded.)
Once the dust has settled (assuming it will in due course), the Airport Commission should consider creating an Airport Advisory group made up of "stakeholders" and interested members of the public, including a number of the candidates who will not be appointed.
Would that all openings for public office on the island had similarly qualified candidates.
Tad
Tad
Post a Comment