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No Spanking Rose or the Board of Ed

Steve Goode

March 23, 2010

The city council didn't take action Monday on two resolutions aimed at getting Corporation Counsel John Rose's undivided attention. The first measure took note of his 18-month, $200,000 losing streak with the FOI Commissionand sought to force him to ask for permission before he goes off on another appeal. The resolution, which also called for him to pay future fines out of his own pocket, was postponed,

The second, which took note of his office's recent involvement in the Democratic town committee primary, the aformentioned FOI losing streak and expenses paid to outside firms, sought a vote of no confidence on Rose. It was tabled, ostensibly because council member Larry Deutsch, who created the resolutions, was not at the meeting.

The council also declined to get in the Board of Ed's face over its recent decision to send Superintendent Steven Adamowski to the state to get them to fiddle with its collective bargaining agreement with the teachers union.

Council member Luis Cotto of the Working Families Party introduced a resolution designed to show the council's displeasure with the board for trying to mess with the contract and asked his colleagues to join him in voicing their oppositon. Cotto turned out to be the lone yes vote as his fellow council members spent the next ten minutes explaining why they would abstain from voting on the resolution.

They also went the abstention route on Cotto's next resolution - also created by WFP mate Deutsch - which sought to prohibit the school board from spending any more money on lawyers in connection with trying to change the collective bargaining agreement.

Council member Ken Kennedy noted that he was not inclined to vote on an illegal resolution and council member Matt Ritter may have been understating it just a tad when he noted that the union and the board of ed have some serious trust issues to work out.