I have been covering Biddeford City Hall for nearly a quarter century, and I don’t recall seeing anything so silly and inane as what I witnessed during Tuesday’s city council meeting.
If you are a resident of Biddeford, you can let out a deep sigh of relief because City Manager James Bennett and his crack staff uncovered a little-known flaw in the city’s municipal ordinances.
Apparently, up until Tuesday, there was nothing in the city’s code of ordinances regarding improper or unauthorized usage of the city’s official seal.
Members of the city council, almost without question, dutifully voted unanimously to approve this important and vital change to our code of ordinances.
Phew! We narrowly dodged a bullet there.
But here’s the deal. It was already illegal. State law already prohibits any persons or entity from using a municipal seal in any inappropriate manner.
In fact, Bennett and his staff knew – before bringing this gem before the council— that it was already a violation of state law to use the city’s official seal in an unauthorized manner. But that didn’t stop them from drafting both a memo and new ordinance language in order to ensure that bad people clearly know that our city will not tolerate violations of state law within the city limits.
Wait. What?
In the classic 1978 comedy Animal House, Dean Wormer is vexed about a notorious fraternity on the campus of Faber College. In one memorable scene, the dean tells some close allies that he will place the Delta fraternity on probation.
“But the Deltas are already on probation,” says the chair of the student council.
“Well then,” the dean says with a smirk. “Now they are on double-secret probation.”
Our city manager earns a handsome six-figure salary plus a suite of lucrative employment benefits. Under his watch over the last few years, City Hall staff has ballooned. The argument always being “we are very busy and need more people.” At the same time, we seem to be doing a piss-poor job of retaining department heads and other senior staff.
In fact, I was surprised that Bennett didn’t recommend hiring a consultant to study the issue of inappropriate use of the city seal. Then we could send those recommendations from the consultant to the Policy Committee, where it would be dutifully reviewed and sent back to the council.
At this point, based on actual recent events, the council could then ask for “more information” and suggest that the Policy Committee should host a joint meeting with the city’s Conservation Committee in order to develop a joint resolution and appropriate guidance for the city council.
Meanwhile, residents are opening eye-popping property tax bills. Meanwhile, more and more of our neighbors are sleeping in doorways. Meanwhile, we can’t figure out how to paint the city’s clock tower. Meanwhile, we have a downtown parking debacle that borders on the absurd.
What’s next?
Is Bennett going to recommend to the council that we should amend our ordinances “to affirm” that murder is not allowed in the city of Biddeford?
I mean, right now all we have is the Ten Commandments and some rather explicit language at both the state and federal level that spells out murder is against the law. Sure, let’s update our municipal ordinances.
I don’t care if Bennett and his staff spent less than two hours on this issue. It was an epic waste of time and resources. Is the city manager just trying to justify his salary? Or does he and his staff have lots of free time to generate this sort of stuff?
Make no mistake. As usual, no one from the public spoke. No one from the public attended the meeting. Left to their own devices, this is the kind of stuff that happens in government when no one is watching.
This is your tax dollars at work. Happy?
Just remember: “Hooper drives the boat, Chief”
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