Bob Turner, Gordon Boyd, and Jeff Altamari Decline Invitation To Meet With The Charter Review Commission

A sub-committee of the Charter Review Commission invited Bob Turner, Gordon Boyd, and Jeff Altamari to meet with them and offer their views.

In emails to them,  Ms. Bush, the executive assistant to Vince DeLeonardi,s who is both the City Attorney and the chair of the new charter commission, asked them to come “…to discuss your experience with previous Charter efforts and the current review.”

The email asked them to offer some possible dates when they could meet .

Mr. Boyd and Mr. Altamari responded that their schedules were such that they would be unable to participate.  Mr. Turner’s terse email simply stated that he declined to meet.

I FOILed for the associated documents.  Here is a link to Ms. Bush’s invitations and their responses.  FOIL Re BoydAltamariTurner

 

7 thoughts on “Bob Turner, Gordon Boyd, and Jeff Altamari Decline Invitation To Meet With The Charter Review Commission”

  2. Shame, although as stated, the published work presented speaks for itself. Perhaps the Commission should reach out to other members on that panel who initially were tasked to review our present charter but whose findings were dismissed early and omitted from the bulk of their collective work and from their summarized “comprehensive review”.

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  4. This was excellent reporting, John – concise and complete.

    I generally agree with all the previous comments, so I’d like to add some observations in other, yet related areas:

    1) I take note of the alacrity with which the city granted your FOIL request: Submitted on the 26th, granted on the 27th, posted the same day. Given your previous tussles with the same people when trying to obtain other things, I think the contrast is remarkable.

    People can draw their own conclusions, but it is not far-fetched to opine that this was a message that they wanted out, No need today for meetings, discussions or gnashing of teeth – also remarkably redaction-free!

    Alacrity. Its not always the message – but the hoops you have (or don’t have) to jump through to receive it…
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    2) And yet, its a great message! The exchanges show an attempt at inclusiveness on the part of the city, and its legit charter commission. It also shows a lot of petulance, from one defunct and former chair particularly, which was pointed out above – so i will not pile on today.

    Instead, I will contemplate how perilously close we came to turning the keys over to this group, who wouldn’t know the meaning of the word inclusive if it fell on them. And who now can’t be bothered.
    .
    Once again, people can draw their own conclusions, but it is not far-fetched to opine that these guys got out-maneuvered again!

    (This time, I think they may actually have realized that it was happening to them….) Ouch.

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    1. Bear in mind that foil requests are not the only responsibility of the office. This request most likely was one that was quickly dispensed because document search and review was not time consuming. The courtesy shown by this new Commission follows the omission by the previous council to invite the then current Deputies into their fact finding. Unfortunately for that team, they erred on the side of promoting their choice of government over reviewing for the public’s consumption, the two options. I imagine the case was made to the college students enrolled in their political science curriculum that the existing charter was obsolete and it was therefore, their assignment to advance change and support their instructor. The politics of spreading their word, the least being through memberships and networking and the science of how to win fell short. If that had been their charge, most would have empathized with their loss. But having basically disenfranchised the rest of the city voters without “a charter review” and accepting outside funds for their promotion only gave their body of work, in the end, a hollow ring.

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  5. Remember when Gordon Boyd wrote to the Gazette (3/23/18) and the Saratogian (3/25/28) claiming the previous charter commission that he was on had produced a “compendium of recommendations” on how the current charter could be improved “that the new Commission would do well to consider”? Interesting that he is passing up this opportunity to share such a list if it indeed ever existed.

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