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Fear and Loathing (Loathing Anyway) In the County Court House

Time logged in the office, however, does not necessarily provide an accurate indicator of actual work done. Roberta C. Smith, Ralph's executive assistant, says the mayor works on county business during much of his time in Somerville City Hall. She claims her boss spends just as much time in the courthouse as Danehy, and charges that McLaughlin devotes up to 90 per cent of his courthouse time to building a state-wide political organization. Ralph says McLaughlin spends his time "planning his next bid for office," rather than working on county business. McLaughlin, an unsuccessful contender for lieutenant governor in 1974, makes no secret of his ambition to run for governor or some other constitutional office in 1978, but he insists his county business keeps him occupied during the working day.

Unrestricted by civil service regulations, the county commissioners enjoy wide latitude in adjusting salaries of county employees. Not surprisingly, McLaughlin and Danehy chose not to adjust salaries of county employees. Not surprisingly, McLaughlin and Danehy chose not to adjust Smith's pay ($14,700 per year) last December, when they authorized a raise for their own executive assistants to $18,500. McLaughlin argues that Smith lacks the "background" of the other two and that she functions mostly as a secretary.

Ralph claims that this raise and other personnel decisions were signed into law in private meetings between Danehy and McLaughlin, not in open session as prescribed by law. He has brought a suit against his fellow commissioners for violating the state's Open Meeting Law, which forbids members of policy-making boards at the state, county or local level to discuss public business anywhere other than at a public meeting.

Though McLaughlin and Danehy protest that they uphold the Open Meeting Law to the point of avoiding even social contact outside the courthouse, Ralph's suit accuses them of holding private business meetings before rubber-stamping their decisions in public. The minutes of the public sessions show that on seven occasions since McLaughlin joined the board, Ralph has arrived on time and waited as long as an hour for a second member to appear, before adjourning the meeting for lack of a quorum. In every instance, the other commissioners arrived soon after Ralph's own adjournment and held their own meeting. McLaughlin says he and Danehy often do not come to the meetings until an hour after the posted starting time because the first hour is devoted to paper signing and informal discussion, not substantive work.

The minutes also record Ralph as absent from 21 meetings since April, 1975 (as opposed to 12 absences for Danehy and eight for McLaughlin). Ralph claims that several of his unexplained absences were actually misrecorded cases of his adjourning the meeting before McLaughlin and Danehy arrived.

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The minutes are frequently in error, Ralph asserts, because they are compiled by a member of McLaughlin's staff and subject to approval by a majority of the three-man board. Ralph has not signed the minutes for any meeting since July 1, 1975. "They never show me the minutes," he complains, adding that the other commissioners only permit him to see the weekly journal's last page, which is reserved for signatures. Predictably, McLaughlin denies this allegation.

Ralph also argues that many of the hirings listed in the minutes were actually made by McLaughlin and Danehy outside the meetings. He could not cast an informed vote on these appointments anyway, he contends, since the other commissioners refuse to let him see personnel papers and resumes. Again, McLaughlin disputes Ralph's charges, insisting he signs personnel papers only during the meetings.

The minutes are blatantly one-sided in their treatment of absenteeism. While the record for April 20, 1976 notes sympathetically that Danehy "was unable to be present," it adds somewhat less ceremoniously, "Commissioner Ralph being absent." Ralph and McLaughlin were equally non-existent at the meeting of July 13, 1976, but the minutes, "Paul F. Ford, under order dated Jan. 13, 1976, acted for Commissioner McLaughlin--Commissioner Ralph being absent."

This last entry in the minutes brings up another cause for dispute. McLaughlin and Danehy say county commissioners can have their executive assistants act in meetings as surrogates for them, provided that a majority of the board approves this provisional transfer of voting power every year. Ralph interprets the law to mean that an executive assistant can act for an absent commissioner only if the remaining two commissioners authorize him to do so, and that this authorization must be renewed for each meeting. If Ralph is correct, then many of the meetings held in the last two years have been illegal, for he has not consented to transfer anyone's power since his troubles with McLaughlin and Danehy began. Ralph has included the whole question of acting commissioners in his suit, inviting the courts to resolve it.

The controversy over surrogate commissioners reached its most emotional point at a meeting last November 23 when Paul F. Ford and Thomas F. Gibson, executive assistants for McLaughlin and Danehy respectively, acted on behalf of their bosses. Ralph challenged the acting commissioners' credentials, claiming that none of the commissioners had appointed surrogates that year. The minutes record the following interchange:

Ford: They were appointed in January.

Gibson: Two commissioners voted.

Ralph: Each man has to get two other names--since I didn't sign for anyone, there are none!

Gibson: I would have to get a legal opinion on that.

Ralph: Shit on your legal opinion! You wouldn't know a law if you tripped over it!"

The Reverend Ralph, an Episcopal minister since 1958, concedes that this decidedly non-sacerdotal language is accurately quoted, but insists the passion of the moment justified his outburst. His executive assistant recalls indignantly several insulting remarks she says McLaughlin and Danehy made about Ralph in open meetings, remarks never recorded in the minutes.

Most observers around the court house predict a speedy resolution to Ralph's suit, perhaps involving an out-of-court settlement. But the end of the legal battle will probably do nothing to restore political peace in Middlesex county. Ralph and McLaughlin are ensconced in office until 1980. Danehy, who must face the voters in two years, stands an excellent chance of re-election. Barring an unexpected resignation or a still more surprising rapprochement, it looks as if the Middlesex county commissioners are going to have each other to kick around for several years to come.

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