By refusing to buckle to the administration’s claims that two city employees who ran for school committee and who won seats should be named “special employees” so they can be paid, Councilors Stephanie Martin, Stephanie Smith and Mike Marchese have performed a profile in courage.
Where they sit, and who they sit with on the council, makes it extremely difficult to go the other way when the administration is posturing to do things that aren’t exactly right.
We admire Martins, in this instance, for telling her colleagues that “double-dipping” is not allowed in the cases of the two school committee members seeking “special status” so the double dipping is allowed.
Martin served on the Charter Reform Committee. She knows better than to allow the substantive change of the City Charter to satisfy political favoritism and whim sought by the administration.
Better yet, she said so in public for all to hear Monday night at the council meeting.
Smith did the same.
“I don’t think they should be allowed to take two pay checks,” she told her colleagues.
Marchese was more blunt.
“It stinks (this effort to make it OK for them to pick up two pay checks when it is not allowed),” Marchese said.
“This has an odor to it…there’s a lot of things that stink up here.” Indeed.
We applaud the independence of these outspoken councilors.
More outspokenness is needed to temper the administration’s tendencies toward overreach.