Here’s The Scoop…”She Hung Up The Phone!”…
July 2, 2009 by Barbara
NO RADIO INTERVIEW…FOR TOWN MANAGER COLON…
Dear Readers, the host of a radio show …Bill Lewis…1470 on the AM dial gave our Town Manager a call and invited her to speak on his show about her decision and action taken to have Chief Scott Gooding transferred out of the Town….Well, according to the radio host… the Manager said she wasn’t going to talk on the radio and hung up the phone!…Maybe it was a banana phone…for the LBTS Banana Republic we now find ourselves living in…
The host of the show reamed the Town Manager and the commissioners that did not join Mayor Minnet and Commissioner Dodd in requesting the Manager to reinstate Chief Gooding and offer him an apology for the her actions on his show today this morning and repeated this evening at 9 pm….
The host began talking about the dismissal of Chief Gooding with Sheriff Al Lamberti…who explained the contract and said the Manager did exercise her right to have him removed…although the Sheriff was surprised and caught off guard since he received no prior notice of any problems with the Chief…At the end of the day the Sheriff said the Town is the client and the client pays the bill……The BSO serves them and will comply with offering the Manager 3 candidates to choose from to replace Chief Gooding…Sheriff Lamberti said Chief Gooding will do fine with the BSO wherever he relocates to…
The host was much more candid and apparently well informed with the goings on in LBTS…speaking of the run down “ROACHes” and vermin motel purchased…(“cleaned up a little now”) , he added ….The makeup of the Commission…The Manager’s contract…with her severance package of one year’s salary if fired…Questioning HER fiscal responsibility to the Town by including it…(prev. post…the TM is on record in April 2007 saying she did her own contract…alone!)…HMMM…The host also questioned her never having a performance review…asking what was up with that!…Mr. Lewis went on to explain the forfeiture funds…and how it is not part of the Town’s budget…so it is fiscally responsible for use in this situation…Mr. Lewis went on about the meeting on the June 30th meeting and the large support for Chief Gooding and the lack of support for Manager Colon…except for the “3 commission members”…..He even spoke with disdain about Ms. Colon’s assertions of HER administration…explaining that “she is an employee of the town”…and “serves at the pleasure of the Commission”….He spoke of her own agenda for “jockeying for our own police department”…”posturing for something better”…
The host introduced Commissioner Chip LaMarca from Lighthouse Point and asked him to weigh in on what took place with the Town Manager and Chief Scott Gooding…and boy did Mr. LaMarca pull out both barrels…He gave high marks for Chief Gooding…knowing the Chief’s outstanding reputation and his excellence in service for the town…He explained the comparisons and the big differences between his town and ours…adding the use of the forfeiture funds for the police offices was a valid use for the monies…Comm. LaMarca said it was “a dereliction of duty to disapprove” this use of the funds…He said the funds came to the town through the BSO …He explained that the commission cannot keep the monies for their own use…it’s not their [commission] money…He said the Mayor [Minnet] has her hands full on the dais…and there is a “power struggle” going on in LBTS…Comm. LaMarca also spoke of the huge costs for reimplementing a town police force…He then spoke of his preference for a fire-rescue service for paramedics over an ambulance service…Mr. LaMarca said we [LBTS] have 2 commissioner that are VFD and he sees that as a huge ethics conflict!….The host asked Chip Lamarca if the voters would forget this in March when we have the municipal election…
Host Bill Lewis, finished up with more scathing remarks for the Town Manager….Again, he said the Town Manager needs to be fired…We need to “kick her ass to the curb”…That at the “end of the day she micro- managed the BSO”…she’s a “micro-manager!”… SO TRUE!….OUCH!…
BC- Looks like the next time Mr Lewis calls Town Manager Esther Colon….she won’t be answering her administrative banana phone!…
Thanks Mr. Lewis…Sheriff Lamberti…Comm. LaMarca…for getting the word out about what’s happening in LBTS!…
more to come…
