Selectmen named the following people to the police chief search committee at their meeting last night:
- Desiree Aselbekian, a teacher and former school committee member
- Susan Dargan, current Chairwoman of the Regional School Committee and member of the Southborough School Committee
- Barbara Murphy, long-time human resources professional and former member of several town boards
- John Rooney, attorney and former assistant district attorney in Middlesex County
- David Rueger, former director of major projects with hiring responsibility
- Linda Shaffer, special education advocate and former mental health advocate and finance manager
- Paul Smith, postal carrier and former facilities manager at Simmons College
(Committee member credentials came from this article in the Metrowest Daily News.)
Noting that there were seven spots for 16 volunteers, Selectman Sal Giorlandino thanked everyone who put their name forward for consideration.
Selectmen will meet with the committee next Tuesday to review their mission and kick off the search process. The search committee meetings will be open to the public at the beginning while they discuss mission and process, but once the group starts talking about criteria and reviewing resumes, the law says the meetings must be closed to the public.
Selectmen last night also discussed the controversy over their decision to make Interim Chief Jane Moran an automatic finalist should she choose to apply. I’ll tackle that topic in an upcoming post, so stay tuned.
Our Board of Selectmen have let us down. How can they chose such a committee and not select at least one of the two residents who each had more than 25 years of law enforcement experience? One is a professor of criminal justice! One very nice gentleman was was selected (and I am very sincere – he is a very nice guy) is a letter carrier. Is it just me, or wouldn’t we be better served by a selecting one of the law enforcement professionals who applied?
Yikes! Thank God the BOS doesn’t make many major decisions. Can you imagine if they had to make all the decision that were made for the ARHS renovation? We’d still be waiting for the ground breaking.
Way to go Sal, Bill and Bonnie. You really made us proud.
Why we need to stop business as usual in little ole Southborough
The BOS says everything is just peachy on the Police Department, always was and always will be. All of our Chiefs have been great guys and therefore great Chiefs.
Well, that a’int the truth. Just ask the former former police dispatcher identified in this Boston Globe article from September 6, 1995 that informs us that Southborough had to pay a $250,000 penalty because of the sexual harassment of a dispatcher. Well there was a second one as well but that is not being talked about any more. Why not?
This is why we need a fair and open canvass for a Chief by a competent committee. Its also true that we will not get either the fair and open canvas nor the competent committee.
Copyright informationCopyright 1995 The Boston Globe.
SOUTHBOROUGH — From the barber shop to the town library, from the local coffee shop to the post office, outrage greeted the disclosure yesterday that police officers here sexually harassed and demeaned a female dispatcher to such an extent that the state would levy a $250,000 penalty against the town.
Residents were angry first at police officers who repeatedly referred to dispatcher Katherine Baldelli as a “stupid slut,” a “whore” and a “stupid female.” But townspeople were also angry at the department that permitted the behavior to go unchecked for two years, as well as at the financial toll the penalty will exact on a small town budget.
“It sounds like a real tragedy,” said Southborough …
And that should be held against Jane Moran because?
I ran this selection process past my Human Resources Director. She was taken back that the town would proceed like this. She said that while calling the “automatic finalist” catagory a reward for tenure and current acting job, what the town was actually doing was giving a member of a protected catagory (race, gender etc) under the law a benefit not given to other protected catagory applicants. She said that if the town gave a white female an automatic finalist position then what about male applicants or other catagories. Giving a benefit to one creates an unequal palying field which may result in complaints. We were not living in town in 1995, but would not like to see court fees like that again.
It should not be held against Jane Moran.
What it does demonstrate that it is unreasonable to expect that someone whose only law enforcement experience has been 28 years under the Southboro system would be able to implement effective change.
(…)*
Jane Moran is a very nice person. I have no knock against her. In my dealings with her she has pleasant.
I just don’t see how the BOS can honestly expect this to be a fair and open competition.
*A portion of this comment has been deleted by the moderator.
Marty: were you involved? you don’t know anything about that lawsuit- the case was poorly defended, certain indiviuals are dead and others have moved on to greener pastures- please knock off the negativity.