Who is in Charge at the Town Offices?
The March 26th Seacoastonline and March 27th Exeter NewsLetter articles regarding Darren Winham, the Economic Development Director, performing consulting work for the Town of Waterbury, Vermont are most interesting. Once again, the question is; who is in charge at the Town offices. It must not be Russ Dean, the Town Manager. Mr. Dean described the issue as Mr. Winham simply wrapping up a couple loose ends with his former employer and states “we take full responsibility.” Who is we? Why doesn’t Mr. Dean simply state that Mr. Winham has a business that he runs on the side.The bigger question is related to Mr. Dean’s performance as Town Manager and in particular his oversight of Mr. Winham’s activities. First Mr. Dean is quoted in Seacoastonline as stating “It’s my recollection that he told us he had some work to finish up.” He is contradicted by Mr. Winham in the same article when he describes his company, DarWin Dynamic Solutions. Has Mr. Dean provided the adequate oversight of the Economic Development Director’s work for the Town of Exeter? Is Mr. Dean able to state that Mr. Winham’s work for other municipalities did not have an adverse affect upon his work for the Town of Exeter? Does Mr. Dean clearly understand Mr. Winham’s work activities since he was placed on the payroll at an annual cost of approximately $120,000 per year?
The failure of Article 8 in the recent Town Meeting implies that Mr. Dean had a lack of understanding and was not in alignment with Mr. Winham’s activities. Was Article 8 adequately developed and did it address the underlying problems in Exeter’s regulations? How could such an important Article fail? Why was the Epping Road TIF allowed to move forward if Mr. Dean was holding negotiations with Stratham to give away the water and sewer services that Exeter taxpayers are being asked to fund on Epping Road?
Who is in charge at the Town offices? One only needs to reflect upon Bill Clinton’s deposition to understand that it depends upon the definition of “in charge.”
Since Mr. Winham needs three UNH interns to do his job, maybe these interns are writing policy for our town. The devil is the in the details of the TIFF and if someone who was putting the tiff together was strapped for time then we may regret committing ourselves to this tiff. Winham stated at more than one public meeting that he was working 80 hours a week for our town. On top of 20 hours a week for another make him quite super human. I guess we are lucky as a town to have a super human in charge of our economic development. We must all be jealous as Mr. Dean stated. Really are we jealous or are we finally questioning what is really going on in the town offices.
ReplyDeleteI'm interested in knowing more about this proposed deal with Stratham. Any resources you can point me to?
ReplyDeleteI think someone needs to report this to the NH IG as a theft of public funds.
ReplyDeleteCui bono? Government is nothing but a scam for Winham, Russ "100k" Dean, Richard DWI Hunter Kane, and Dan Crony Chartrand to leach off the vast majority of residents who have no interest and want no part in their shenanigans. I recommend Exeter be split into two towns: Central Exeter, which can have its downtown and Board of Rulers, and Outskirts Exeter, which can live slightly less as slaves.
ReplyDeleteEvery Exeter resident wins if "Central Exeter" is busy and thriving. The vast majority of residents live in this area as well.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I do have a problem with how Winham and Dean have handled things as of late.