Why Would You Oppose a Citizen Who Uncovered Unethical Practices in Local Government? - Granite Grok

Why Would You Oppose a Citizen Who Uncovered Unethical Practices in Local Government?

Nashua Assessors office - Image Credit Nashua Telegraph

Some Nashua folks have appeared out of nowhere to take a strong position against the uncovering of unethical practices in the Nashua Assessing Office. What drives these folks?


Related:  Black Lives Matter Nashua and Manchester Publish List of Demands


The Nashua Politics Facebook page had a post put up July 8, 2020, regarding the Department of Revenue sanctions issued against two Nashua Assessor (one has moved on) after a year-long investigation into unethical and illegal practices in the Assessing office. The penalties were as follows: both received decertification with remedial education.

It is interesting to note, that the DRA can only address issues within a 6-month window, a very narrow timeframe.

Oleg Mikailov, a Nashua resident, started the post off with “So, with all that sting and sh*t coming from Ortolano and costing the City over a million dollars, how much did she save in property taxes?”. Well, he is obviously no fan of mine. But why is he so opposed to the citizen uncovering these serious flaws and gross incompetence in the assessing office?

The assessing office should not be driven by politics but that is precisely what has happened in Nashua. Mayor Donchess politicized the department when he appointed his loyalist hack, Kim Kleiner, to become the “out of the office” manager of Assessing as well as the Director of Administrative Services. She has absolutely no experience in Assessing Practices, a technical field with many regulations. How was that going to fix the problems?

Now it appears that friend of the Mayor, Mr. Mikailov has joined the political fight. Mr. Mikailov was a campaign contributor to Donchess and is the neighbor of Executive Councilor Debora Pignatelli. Like the Mayor and his friends, Mr. Mikailov likes the play of discrediting the individual rather than addressing the issue.

Posts like this illustrate the one-side politicizing of what should be a neutral department. Mr. Mikailov writes,

“I am against citizens wasting government resources that could’ve been better spent. These are your money she was wasting.” And, “The only reason the Mayor made this move (promoting Kleiner) is because of the mess you’ve created with the RTK requests and forcing the city to spend over 1 mil on yet another reassessment.”

He follows up with the psychological analysis that all this is the result of “attention-seeking behavior.”

This guy was never interested in an educated, civil discussion. He is a cut and run man, out to smear an individual who uncovered serious issues in the Assessing Department. In support of the Mayor’s approach, Mr. Mikailov would rather keep inept, incompetent workers in place, rather than flushing them out. That is where the real waste of taxpayer money is happening.

Image Credit | Nashua Telegraph

 

>