The Ridgely town manager is contractually obligated to live in the 21660 zip code. When he was hired he made it clear that he understood what it meant to live here and repeatedly informed those at town meetings that he and his family were moving here. Many towns require the town manager to live in or near the town in order to become a stakeholder in the community. Being a stakeholder is a good way to ensure that a town manager doesn't run up huge deficits or become too cozy with developers trying to take advantage of a town.
Our town manager never fulfilled the original requirement of his contract. He simply rented a house on 480 where he stayed a few nights a week while remaining with his family in Westover. He used the rental address for a new drivers licence and a majority of the commissioners let the issue pass. Now it appears that even this pretense of residency has fallen by the wayside. It certainly doesn't look like the town manager is living in the 480 rental. Even this fig leaf has fallen. Is he staying somewhere else in the area a few nights a week? Have the commissioners pressed him on the issue which is still important to many of us? If not, why?
Since Ridgely has a $238,000.00 deficit (which predates the global financial meltdown), some may not worry so much about the town manager's residency requirement. On the other hand, if this requirement had been enforced to begin with (making the town manager a resident stakeholder in our community) many of us believe that our financial situation might be quite different.
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6 comments:
One thing has led to another. A big problem could have been stopped if this had been nipped in the bud.
Uh..........who owns the 480 rental? If it's who I think it is, somebody better start connecting the dots between landlord and Joe The Tenant. Here's what I want to know: Did the Mystery Landlord (and you guys can figure out who it was) receive any benefit from Joe The Tenant's action on town business???????????
Lots of folks want to know. Joe should tender his resignation for all the havoc he has heaped on Ridgely.
OMG--I looked up who Town Manager's landlord was! Ethics Commission needs to be called.
Maybe but hold on there. I've been working on this story which involves an annexation request for the property which didn't go through planning and zoning or the public hearing process contrary to all requirements. Two of the commisioners were not happy and the issue has been dropped and now our TM no longer "lives" there.
More fundamentally, the question of how much the town manager "paid" when he used this as his address. The commissioners should know since this would be part of the verification that he was upholding his contract. Was the amount a market value rent? I'm a rental property owner and know that at a minimum for the time in question should be about $800.00. per month. There are a lot of questions here.
Riddle me this Batman: Have you checked out the prior official Town minutes to see where Mangini explains how he is going to be able to rent in Ridgely? If his rent payment was excessively low, we need to know there was no quid pro quo. Who is the owner of the annexation you're questioning--if it's who I bet it is, somebody should be considering the Ethics Commission and let them decide. End question: Was there any conflict of interest relative to any/all of this? I'm just saying: ask the hard questions and see if Mangini or Mr._ will answer. Bet the silence will be deafening.
OK Riddler--but this situation looks more like a Penguin episode..
"the answer that you seek
it's not in the minutes at all
give me some time to peek
at what's now safe in town hall"
Trust me, I'm working as hard as I can.
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