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The
Martha's Vineyard Times is a weekly publication.
July 28 - August 3, 2005 Edition
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Editorial
Go quietly
July 28, 2005
Go quietly
Here’s the bill:
$85,226, back wages for Bill Weibrecht, the departed airport manager.
$60,458, back wages for Sean Flynn.
$170,452, damages for Mr. Weibrecht.
$120,916, damages for Mr. Flynn.
$100,000, attorney fees for Weibrecht and Flynn.
$183,773, attorney fees for the Airport Commission.
$150,088, attorney fees for Dukes County.
Total: $870,913.
(And that’s without figuring what it will cost the airport
for losing Mr. Weibrecht, a skilled and well-connected airport manager,
plus the cost of finding someone to replace him.)
That’s a big bill, incurred by the Dukes County commissioners
and their county manager on behalf of you, the taxpayers. The county
commissioners are: Robert Sawyer of Tisbury; Roger Wey of Oak Bluffs;
Paul Strauss of Oak Bluffs; Nelson Smith Jr. of Edgartown; John
Alley of West Tisbury; Les Leland of West Tisbury; and Lenny Jason
of Chilmark. E. Winn Davis is the county manager.
“From the time of its inception through the mid-1990s, the
physical facilities of the Martha’s Vineyard Airport, including
the passenger terminal, were in serious disrepair,” Judge Robert
H. Bohn Jr. of the Superior Court wrote in his decision dated July
18, ruling against Dukes County in its defense of a lawsuit seeking
contract wages unreasonably withheld from the airport’s manager
and assistant manager. “Furthermore, because the airport was
not professionally managed, its financial condition was precarious.
Financial record keeping was inadequate, and effective management
oversight was handicapped by the lack of monthly revenue and expenditure
statements. An accounting system kept by the county treasurer commingled
airport revenues with other county funds. No accounts receivable
system was maintained. Revenues available to the airport were not
being collected, including emplanement fees from commercial airlines,
rentals from the updated commercial land leases and parking franchise
fees.”
John Alley was chairman of the airport commission at the time. He
presided firsthand over the chaos. He was also a county commissioner,
presiding at a distance. Today, in a circumstance that must be for
every Island taxpayer horrifyingly reminiscent, he is chairman of
the county commissioners and a self-appointed member of the airport
commission. Mr. Alley and many of the current members of the county
commission are responsible for the mess that was the airport in
the early 1990s. All of the sitting commissioners are responsible
for the senseless power struggle that resulted in this lawsuit and
its appalling outcome.
After having superintended the decay and mismanagement of the county’s
chief asset, the county commissioners of the 1990s stepped aside
temporarily from the airport commission because they had to. They
ceded authority over the airport to the airport commission and to
the state. Doing so, they removed themselves as obstacles to the
redevelopment and expansion of the airport and its proper management.
If they hadn’t, there would have been no federal and state
funds to improve the airport. The officials in Boston, who were
responsible for those funds, knew that the mid-1990s airport commission,
overseen by the then county commissioners, could not be entrusted
with the money.
But, after the airport was set aright, when responsible airport
commissioners were in place and professional management was taking
hold, the county commissioners reasserted themselves, determinedly
grasping for bits and pieces of the power and most of all the airport
revenue they had so reluctantly relinquished. Ultimately, they drove
out the accomplished citizen volunteers who had done the work of
the airport renovation, they drove out the top-flight professional
airport manager, and they put themselves back in power, as county
commissioners and airport commissioners, to lead the county and
its taxpayers to this $870,000 debacle of unpaid wages, treble damages,
and legal fees.
Now, in the aftermath, what does good conscience, fairness, humility,
and grace require of these hapless county leaders?
The county manager and the commissioners who alone are responsible
for this mess must resign and set in motion a special election to
find new, competent county leaders who may be depended on to reconsider
the county’s role in government on Martha’s Vineyard,
if it has one.
The county commissioners who are members of the airport commission
must give way and remove their employee, the county rodent control
officer, whom they installed on the airport commission to help consolidate
their power over airport revenue they would like to tap to expand
county government.
And finally, to replace themselves on the airport commission, the
commissioners must look for interested and qualified volunteers
from the community to sit on the airport commission. We mean volunteers
such as the smart businessmen and experienced aviators who have
volunteered for the seats over the years but were spurned by the
incompetent county commissioners who wanted the power in their hands,
and the interests of their constituents be damned.
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