Tuesday, April 30

FAIRWELL TO THE CHIEF ?


FAIRWELL TO THE CHIEF ?

An interesting point was made as the BoS were discussing the police dept budget. One of the reasons that this budget had ballooned is that it was anticipating an administrative chief; which means the chief would not do patrol duty. This would require a patrolman on duty with the chief. They called Chief Bucknell a working chief; which means that in addition to being a patrol officer 40+ hours per week she had to take care of all the administrative duties as well. This must be why people usually had to set an appointment with Chief Bucknell. With Officer Pilone I can usually just stop by the station and he can chat. I have to wonder if it’s worth an extra $50,000.00 so I can sit down at will and talk with the chief about what I wrote on my blog.

Charlie said that in the case of a working chief the administrative duties usually took a back seat to the duties of serving the people’s safety needs. Charlie may have just inadvertently revealed why the police dept was in such disorder. Perhaps this is why Chief Bucknell could rarely take time off and had to put in many unpaid hours of overtime. Now the BoS wants to fire the chief because she was a working chief. They also mentioned that the new chief would have to be a working chief as well. I guess in a few years we’ll be doing another ten thousand dollar report to find the house is still in disorder and we have to fire another chief.

By now you’ve heard that the BoS voted to hire a part time interim chief. I can’t recall the guys name and it really doesn’t matter. I guess this interim chief's main mission is to figure out how to get rid of Chief Bucknell without it looking like the BoS are trying to railroad her. They said this would take 3 to 6 months and cost about $750.00 a week for this part time position. Of course we will still be paying Chief Bucknell her full time salary while she is on administrative leave; and God only knows how much it will cost to settle any law suit.

This interim chief really has his work cut out for him. He has to take a report that could not show the Attorney General or the District Attorney any actionable offences against the chief, and find a way to use it to fire her. News flash BoS; it will always look like you’re trying to railroad the chief because you are railroading her. Have the guts to either fire her and take the consequences or swallow your pride bring her back. But don’t make the town spend any more money to support your foolishness.

It was unclear to me if we as citizens could stop this train wreck. The way the BoS was talking is that it’s a fait accompli and regardless of what happens at the special town meeting they think it’s a done deal. Although I don’t know how they will fund this fiasco if we vote it down. It seems that if this BoS wants to do something they don’t let anything get in their way. Maybe the only way to stop this train wreck is to throw this BoS off of the train.  
KevinZurrin

 

13 comments:

  1. Pilone is two weeks away from having the four stars he has self appointed to his unifrom taken away and noo comment. Come on man Egremont has hired the lowest bidder someone who does not belong in power to save money and no response. Reena should not be there either if you are wondering what side im on. Im on the side of Egremont does not need to spend 350K a year to hald one house break an accident and three proactive arrests. Especially when the current roster is made of guys who were discontinued in other departments

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  2. Egremont you are going to get what ytou pay for. While Brian Shaw s a nice man and a respectable person, he has not handled a criminal case since sometime in like 1989. You selected the lowest fill in. That means if Commisioner Kelly roles on out the NYPD should pick up Billy the Kid cause he was the lowest bid. This position was never put out to the public, this police department is not needed, carlson and pilone are overated jokes that do not belong. Disband this departmend adn offer Great Barrington, Sheffield or the MSP hald of your 300K+ budgett to oversea your town and you will get better service. Charlie Flynn you are a over rated egotistical moron to begin with.

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  3. This is what your blog has to offer us Kevin. What a joke. Personal attacks on the Police officer's that protect us? You remove posts that allegedly attack your fellow bloggers but the attacks on our police officers remain....how curious.....

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    1. Really! Kevin's Blog is the best thing to happen to Egremont this town needs to wake up and get involved. The BOS will do to the New Guys just what they have done to the CHIEF and she cared for this town for many years.

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  4. Interesting how things evolve. Rumor has it that two officers were just suspended for breaking into the evidence room. While Officer Pilone may want to keep it quiet, will the new Interim Chief make it public? These two were part of the insurrection. Why are they not fired? Is it kept under wraps because of the election? Charlie, where is your indignation now?

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  5. Maybe they will be suspended with pay

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  6. A crime is a crime. If I'd broken into evidence room I'd be in jail. I don't understand why this wouldn't be carried out on the offending officers. Arrrest, arraign, trial-simple. More important yet, what were they stealing?

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  7. There is always more to the story than what we hear in the news or through blogs. Personnel matters are not made public for good reasons all of them having to do with litigation. Personally, I think Egremont does need a professional police force. We have far more crime (usually domestic issues) than anyone realizes. The traffic work that is done during the day time and early evening is actually important (not to mention lucrative) people should not drive through the village of South Egremont at 50 mph and believe me if there was not a police deterrent they would and it isn't safe. Houses get broken into often and there are safety issues that the police address weekly if not daily. What I do not think we need is the force 24 hours - I know we would be well served by getting coverage from 11pm to 6am from the State Police. The State Police do a very good job supporting Mt. Washington and Alford and we should take advantage of this. I would stay way from the idea that we could get that level of coverage from Great Barrington or Sheffield they have thier own needs and ours would come second.
    After reading this blog and listening to my fellow towns people what we need more than anything is better communication from our Select Board and definitely more skillful communication.

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  8. Maybe Egremont can hold the record for most police officers on paid leave at one time.

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  9. My personal experience with Chief Bucknell has been positive. She is a serious professional, in my opinion, with a deep committment to the people of Egremont. The disrespectful way in which she has been treated by the "leaders" of the town should not be tolerated and the lack of transparency in this and other sensitive issues of town business is at least an abuse of power. This conduct flies in the face of democracy

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  10. Kevin, when will you get the message? We do not like you. We do not trust you. You are viewed as a joke in this town. You will never again be taken seriously, aside from maybe the sixty Bucknell band wagon riders. You probably would have gotten ten votes without them. You tied yourself to a lost cause. The people in this town are a lot brighter then you think Kevin. You have no intention on doing good in this town WE all love. Go back to Baltimore to the big city with your big mouth. We don't want you here. The election votes should tell you at least that much. Goodbye

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    1. If it were not for this Blog the people of Egremont would not know a thing. We would still think the water co. is an asset that the nonusers should help pay for, when the users are not even being billed a full year. The Selectman tell the people nothing that is true, that you can count on. They said nothing about the chief, to the town or why she was put on leave. We read it on this Blog from Kevin. It may not be perfect but in the past we had nothing. Thank-you kevin, keep it up.

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