Wednesday, April 05, 2006

Upham fails voters again

Andy Upham, vice-chair of the Gray Town Council, failed the voters of Gray at Tuesday night's meeting, delivering a flawed council fiscal policy and failing to correct errors that were brought to his attention.

It was a disappointing performance from a man who has railed so long against mediocrity and poor performance in Gray's government.

After initially presenting his fiscal policy in October, Upham made only minor changes to the original document but still failed to correct several obvious spelling errors. And this after finding fault with Town Manager Mitch Berkowitz numerous times for just such errors.

In addition, Upham delivered a policy that looks at the performance of every department and function in town . . . except the town council itself. It's important to the voters of Gray that we have a way to measure not only the performance of salaried employees, but the performance of our five "employees" who sit in the council chairs.

Chair Gary Foster told the audience that any errors could be corrected later, missing a chance to show badly-needed leadership by fixing problems boldly and promptly.

All around, a very disappointing showing from a couple of people who have found fault with others so often for their only too-human mistakes.

I challenge Mr. Upham to present corrections to his policy for a vote at the next council meeting. We must be able to count on him to deliver on his promise of improved government for Gray. Delivering a policy with even these simple mistakes is a failure to meet that promise.

Nathan Tsukroff