MEMORANDUM on weights and measure
In the City Council Packet this week there are two pieces of information that caught my attention.
The first has to do with a letter from Asst. Manager Baacke that talks about the amount of money already collected by the Northern Middlesex Council of Governments who replaced the Sealer of Weights and Measures position.
The “NEW” collectors for weights and measures in the short time they have done it have collected more money than the city received in the last year that John Hynes did it. A bitter Mr. Hynes continue’s to call into WCAP whenever he can to attack the Manager but these numbers should prove beyond any reasonable doubt that Hynes wasn’t exactly a top performing employee.
It will be interesting to see if the Sun prints anything about the revenue collected by this group or will they ignore some good city news that shows anything positive for the administration? According to the Editor this morning the SUN is fair. Let’s see how this report is spun by them.
The 2nd item is a report that IMHO shows that the Manager / City were correct and followed the LAW in hiring the Audit firm Melanson and Heath’s to assist with the reconciliation of the city books. The Issue of whether the city should have put this out for bid was addressed at the time but is again reviewed and it appears the hiring was allowed under the exemption of that need per MGL 30B which is noted in the report.
I went back at looked at the council meeting notes and discussion around the issue of hiring without having to put out for bid and as Tom Moses explained at the time anyone looking at the city books has to have extensive experience with municipalities. There are not many accounting firms in this state who specialize in municipal accounting. At that time many were not available. So the city selected one who had experience and one that was big enough and had had enough staff to get it done in a timely and efficient matter. Melanson & Heath was the most qualified one that was available and the law allows the hiring without having to go to bid. Agin I wonder if the Sun will mention that or spin it to question still whether they should have gone out for bid.
