Morning news

Scanning the (online) papers this morning....

William Williams, the soon to be former town manager of Billerica, is leaving after he made some less than flattering observations about the place during an address to a Chamber of Commerce breakfast. Mark Twain advised: “always tell the truth – in will amaze your friends and confound your enemies.” It's good to remember that Twain was self-employed.

The city of Springfield, having convinced the legislature to allow it to require residency on the part of all city employees not covered by a union contract is now considering a mandate to require that any contractor with a contract of over $250,000 have at least 35% of its workforce be city residents. The excuse is, as with the residency requirement, that the city's money should be spent to benefit city residents. This parochialism will likely result in higher costs, fewer bidders, and inspire the kind of “hack hiring” that you'd think municipalities would want to avoid. Springfield is emerging from receivership but the argument that it's “the city's money” is bogus, given the level of state aid it gets and the amount of state and federal funds involved in major building projects.

The members of SEIU in Amherst met to discuss a possible contract reopener and a giveback of the 3.5% cost of living adjustment in the face of the town's deficit. SEIU represents the technical and clerical workers in town, the folks that make up the infrastructure of the government. Most of their work goes unnoticed, if its done well, which puts them in an interesting position. Amherst, like other towns, is a collective enterprise and we need to approach the budget issues from that perspective, rather than lob brickbats.