This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Health & Fitness

Why I abstained

Alternative subject is: What was the emergency?

As you may have heard, at our August 29th Lawrence Village Board of Trustees meeting, Mayor Oliner decided to replace David Smollett as Village Clerk/ Treasurer/ Administrator mid-way through the meeting.

This was done with no notice, at least with no notice to this member of the board. I chose to abstain from this vote and I feel that it is important for people to know why.

I firmly believe that decisions like hiring of a top employee should not be done in haste and without proper planning. In this case, there were no resumes collected, no interviews conducted, and no vetting performed. This is not the way that any organization should make personnel moves. 

The need for an emergency transition was not presented to the board and certainly not to the public. Therefore, I felt that this entire vote was inappropriate and not in the best interests of the Village of Lawrence. It was therefore appropriate to abstain.

I want to thank David Smollett for his service to the Village over the past years. He managed the Village of Lawrence during the most difficult times of Hurricane Sandy. He deserves our gratitude.

I want to welcome Ron Goldman as the new Clerk/ Treasurer/ Administrator and I look forward to working with him for the betterment of our community. 

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