Your Voice: Seems like selectmen don't have a clue

Les Elder (Courtesy photo)

When the Town of Milton has no Town Administrator, who is running the Town? At the recent Board of Selectmen's meeting, I brought forth my repeated unanswered requests for right to know information and was told by the Board of Selectmen the following:

"We can only do so much; there's only so many hours in a day and only so many people here" from Selectmen Chairman Tom Gray.

Michael Beaulieu added, "I don't understand what you want."

Selectman Andrew Rawson at that point said he wasn't aware of the requests, while Beaulieu said he knew about them but didn't look at them.

A recent response from the Board of Selectmen to me may shed some light on this, it reads as follows:

"The Town's letter on May 25th responding to several requests that you had made, does not appear to have provided you with the documents you have been requesting, as the same requests have been resubmitted. We apologize for our oversight; we hope you understand our confusion given the number of your requests. If after your review of this letter you are of the opinion that the Town has not provided you with the documents you have been requesting you will find all official minutes recorded in the Town Clerk's Office.

"Until the newly hired town administrator starts employment (August 17^th, 2016) all future 91A (right to know) requests for minutes should be submitted to the Town Clerk and she will make sure that those minutes that are public will be made available to you for inspection, review and copying at town hall."

The irony that I see in all of this is the Board can find the time and means to schedule a meeting to confer with the Town Attorney and compose a poorly written letter to "address" my concerns of not complying with the law or fulfilling my requests, but cannot find the time and means to actually FULFILL my REQUESTS.
The reasons given for not being able to fulfill these info requests is, well, a bit disingenuous in my opinion since the absence of a TA is the result of their own decision.

It appears that the Selectmen rely on the Town Administrator to do what, they want. If they are unable to answer these simple questions, who is paying the bills? Who is watching the flock? Who is in charge?

Not sure if I know. Do you?