I’m at the Tiverton Town Council meeting, where residents used the open-comment section to express their displeasure with the way the council let an incompetent town administrator, who ought to have been held responsible for losing the town some untold thousands of dollars, ease into retirement and let an employee who was filmed apparently stealing time and resources from the town (in combination with a whistle blower’s testimony) ease into his own lucrative retirement (with around $55,000 in sick and vacation time).  (Some back story, here.)

After the audience spoke, the council put an item on the agenda to allow itself to respond.  Their points could be summarized as follows. (Note that these aren’t direct quotations, but my interpretation of their comments’ essence.)

• “We inherited every problem that we’ve faced in every area of our duties for our entire time in office.”  Never mind that four of the seven councilors were on the previous council, with two of them having even longer histories, both of them having been president. Oh, and never mind that the contract covering the employee in question was effective last July; that is, this council agreed to it.
• “You people have no right to judge us.”  Mostly, this inference comes from member Bill Gerlach, who spent some time haranguing the audience for not coming to more meetings and sitting in on all of the details of the budget process.  Also on this theme, though, other council members talked about how tough their job is and how they have more information than the public… actually, more information than can “be allowed to be out there,” in the words of Vice President Denise deMedeiros.  So who are we to judge?
• “You can’t trust the leading television news network in the state, and they refused to work with the state police… or us.”  Again, no facts are relevant except the ones they can’t tell us about.
• “Trust us, we had no good options, and this was the best possible decision.”  And thus, a council stocked with a majority that has been involved in negotiating contracts and newer members who gained their seats with strong support from town employees complains that the system that they and their allies and friends have set up ties their hands.

This is the system that people like those on the council (now pretty much to a person) have set up, and it’s one in which nobody is ever responsible for anything or ever has to take responsibility.  It’s an illegitimate system with which the rest of us comply mainly because the government has the power to take our money and put us in jail.

But let it be known far and wide: There are minimal repercussions for criminal behavior within government in Tiverton, Rhode Island, provided you’re well connected and covered with a labor union shield, and the people in power with any real plan of changing this corrupt system are few, far between, and viciously dehumanized and attacked by the people saying “trust us.”