A Lapse Of Memory, Perhaps?

To the editor: In David Iverson’s opinion piece, published by the Current on March 229th, he states in paragraph three the following: “You would think at this time there would have been outrage or at least questions as to the process used. But there were none.” This was in reference to Ms. Leslie Snell’s hiring that was finally made public at their May 2023 meeting. Well, that is a false narrative because I did write a letter to the NP&EDC which was received on July 17, 2023, articulating my concerns about their recent promotion of Ms Snell behind closed doors and without public input, followed up by several questions I had for the committee to be answered publicly.

Below were some of my questions:

• In the past ten years were personnel given exit interviews?
• Have the people currently employed at PLUS been given an opportunity to anonymously voice their opinions on this appointment?
• How many people have left PLUS in the past decade?
• How was Ms Snell evaluated? Annually? By Whom?
• Has your committee set goals and benchmarks to measure the performance of the Director of Planning/PLUS? If so, are these documents public?
• What were the criteria used to hire Ms Snell, planning Director/PLUS Director?

And here’s a new question, who decided it wasn’t necessary to do a broader search for this important position? When did all eleven committee members vote that this wasn’t necessary?

Not one committee member reached out to me last summer or answered any of my concerns publicly. The members of the NP&EDC were confident in their arrogance to dismiss these concerns and questions with silence. Meghan Perry followed up with her own concerns by writing a complaint to the AG’s office about their illegal hiring of Ms Snell, last summer, which took months to process. Two weeks ago the AG’s office validated Ms Perry’s complaint that indeed this was done illegally and that the committee needed to ratify her contract, in public, within a 45-day period. No surprise her contract was ratified on Monday night, even though the community’s response was loud and clear that a formal broader search was needed. What is worth mentioning is there still has been no public apology from this board to the Nantucket community.*

Our community has an opportunity this May to voice their opinion either to keep the status quo or to change it up and vote in people with integrity, intelligence, and a willingness to implement positive change for our island community.

Enough of the insider politics, of disregarding the MOL and acting in self-service instead of public service.

Karla Butler

* editor's note: several members of the NP&EDC did apologize individually at the March 25th meeting, and the commission also voted unanimously to issue a public apology for the open meeting law violation.