Journal & Topics Media Group

Maine Trustees Expected To Lock Horns Over Dais Seating


The majority voting bloc of the Maine Township board, which has engaged in regular arguments with the board’s other voting members, has proposed prohibiting the township’s three other non-trustee elected officials from sitting on the elevated dais during regular meetings.

Included in last night’s (Tuesday’s) Maine Township regular board meeting agenda was the proposal to discuss and decide on having only voting board members sit on the dais. Listed on the agenda as making the change are trustees Claire McKenzie, Dave Carrabotta, and Susan Sweeney.

According to Maine Township Supervisor Laura Morask, McKenzie, the lone Democrat on the board, asked that the item be included on the agenda. Telephone calls made to McKenzie by the Journal & Topics in an effort to obtain further information were not returned.

At least since the 1980s, elected officials who sit on the dais facing local residents and others attending the meeting included the four trustees, the supervisor, who is the top officer of the township and a voting member, the township clerk, highway commissioner, and assessor. The latter three do not cast votes, but they participate in discussion. About a year ago, the township attorney was directed to sit on the dais as well.

“I have no idea what prompted this,” said Morask when contacted by the Journal & Topics late last week after the agenda was publicly posted. “ I will be making a statement about this at the meeting as so will the clerk. Pete Gialamas (clerk) calls the votes during meetings. What is he supposed to do, call them from the back of the room?”

Added Morask, never in my 18 years on the town board have I ever seen anything like this. There are many towns, villages and counties and even Maine Township that deal with issues like floods, gang shootings and the homelessness. They’re big issues. And now you have three members of our board concerned with the seating chart? That to me absolutely says it all.”

For more than a year since Carrabotta, Sweeney and McKenzie were elected to the board, they and Trustee Kim Jones, Morask, and even Clerk Pete Gialamas and Assessor Susan Moylan Krey, have engaged in major arguments about a variety of issues, which have at times become personal. One of the issues involved Jones’ charges that Carrabotta inappropriately touched her on three separate occasions. Last month, the three trustees pushed for no pay increases for township employees despite Morask and Jones’ claim that small raises of between 2% and 2.5% are warranted. The three-member voting bloc also engaged in an argument that included Moylan Krey over the program that enables her to garner pension benefits.

Morask said her office recently surveyed eight area townships to learn about who sits on the dais facing the public during meetings. She said five of the eight allow trustees along with elected township administrators.

“I think it’s silly and harmful in the sense that it seems very personal and makes a laughing stock out of township,” explained Morask.”What good does it do?

 

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