dysfunctional - a consequence of a social practice or behavior pattern that undermines the stability of a social system.

A discouraging and total lack of leadership. Although I don't recall the author I read an interesting article awhile back about the danger of confusing "posturing" with "leadership". This Portsmouth Council is a case study. All the effort is devoted to sound bytes and headline grabbing and trying to "one up" each other. A true leader surveys the landscape, makes an appraisal of the situation based on facts and devises a strategy to acheive the stated objective and influence others to assist him/her in that endeavor. The majority of this council (Gleeson, Plumb, McIntyre & Little), surveys the landscape and then simply rejects the facts that don't fit with their predetermined world view. Every standard applied, from independent audit and study to comparative analysis with other schools proves the school dept. is underfunded and does a great job with the funds they have, spending wisely and efficiently. Yet Gleeson and Plumb ignore those facts and state they want to cut $500K to $1M, but it won't effect music, art, athletics or academic programs because there MUST BE wasted $$$ or other inefficiencies in the system now. The Council says it will cut $500K to $1.2M and the school committee responsibly convenes meetings to try to figure out how to deal with such a cut. McIntyre reads that they are meeting on the topic and concludes they have a secret plan to absorb the cuts. What? The Finance Directors submit what they call barebones budgets and the council concludes they are not, they both lied, and there must be a "plan B". This group possesses an almost uncanny talent for ignoring and avoiding the truth. Once they do that, they don't have to try to build a consensus to acheive the goal because the goal is already acheived. Turns out there really wasn't a problem after all. We can all just pretend there is enough money in the reduced budget to run the shcools and if programs are cut well that's because the administrators and teachers failed. It's fantasy. Only Seveney and Canario have made a realistic assessment of the situation and confronted the realities we face. Increase taxes to fund the budget or decimate the school system. You might not like the choice they made (I do) but at least it is a realistic assessment and a course of action based on that rational assessment and designed to protect the interests of the public. They are leaders. The others are pretenders.

John:

Were we at the same meeting? You wrote about what happened after the council voted not to support the provisional budget, and you wrote, "This prompted a discussion of what number might be acceptable and how to get there."

Huh? There was no "discussion of what number might be acceptable and how to get there." Instead, we had Hamilton, Gleason, Little and McIntyre who clearly had no idea what to do now that they killed the provisional budget. The rest of the hour or so that the council spent on this topic was just chaos, posturing and arguing by these four incompetents.

The detailed line items that made up the provisional budget have been well known to this council for at least 3 months. A public hearing on it was held nearly two weeks ago! Hamilton, Gleason, Little and McIntyre showed up last night knowing that they would vote "no" to that budget because it would go over the tax cap and cost folks 59 bucks a year. Yet Hamilton, Gleason, Little and McIntyre had not planned any further than just saying "no". That is pure and simple nothing less than abandoning the responsibilities of their elected office.

Hamilton, Gleason, Little and McIntyre sat there hemming and hawing and arguing with each other and arguing with Seveney and Canario and arguing with the town administration and arguing even with themselves! But for all the heated arguing, neither Hamilton, Gleason or Little had any plans or ideas to say where they were going to vote to cut the budget.

At least Peter "the-goddam-schools" McIntyre was true to his life long loathing of the schools and said right out loud he thought the whole $523K should be cut from the school department.

But, Hamilton kept saying he didn't intend for all the cuts to come from the schools. So by definition that means some of the cuts have to come from the town side. Yet, did he suggest anything on the town side to actually be cut? Did he make any motions? No.

Good ol' Huck Little, as usual, just sat there like a lump contributing nothing constructive.

Gleason's motion to adopt a bottom line at the cap limit of $54 million was ridiculous on its face. Here's why: The town budget has line items... school department, police, fire, insurance, paving, and so on. The council provisionally approved all of them. If you add up each of those prior approved line items it would add up to more than $54 million. So voting for a bottom line that is less than the expenditures you have already approved results in a budget that is not balanced, and by simple common sense (and I think, the law) we must have a balanced budget.

The only way that a bottom line budget motion at $54 million can result in a balanced budget, is if you make specific cuts to line items to match. Gleason didn't move for anything to be cut, so her motion was just plain stupid.

But that wasn't the most outrageous point in the evening. That came when Town Council member Keith Hamilton called Superintendent Susan Lusi a liar, along with the school finance director and the whole elected school committee. It happened like this: Seveney was making the point that both the school department and the town administration had worked closely with the town council and school committee for months developing the details of the budgets, and that at this point, "these are the numbers we have arrived at".

Then, Seveney asked if Hamilton thought that those "numbers were fake" and that these people "were lying to us"?

And Keith Hamilton said, "Yes."

That's right, Hamilton called the Superintendent, the finance director and whole school committee, liars.

Honestly, I don't know how Sue Lusi and the rest kept their composure in the face of an open malicious smear like that. Keith Hamilton should be ashamed, but I don't imagine he is. Keith Hamilton should apologize, but I don't expect he will.

So, no John. I did not observe a "discussion of what number might be acceptable and how to get there." Frankly, I would have appreciated it if Hamilton, Gleason, Little and McIntyre had behaved civilly and responsibly and really did have a discussion of what number might be acceptable and how to get there. They didn't. All they did was delay the budget further until Wednesday night.

I agree completely with the comments of ElCapitan and Old Timer: Hamilton, Gleason, Little and McIntyre displayed a profound lack of leadership and the result was a council in dysfunction.

Hi John,

This should be made into a play at the high school. Not too many years ago, the drama department wrote their own play and put it on about all about this very kind of nonsense that we repeat each year - in Portsmouth's Town Council's Chamber.

I would love to see what the kids come up with.

Sandra

Whatever you can do or dream, you can BEGIN IT. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Goethe

Upon reading your recent post I must say that I am ashamed of the town council. This however would exclude Mr. Seveney and Mr. Canario from said ashamed feeling.
I also must commend someone at this meeting for speaking up in disbelief that Mr.MacIntyre would get his information from the paper and not from working, and I mean really working with the numbers and the budget entrusted to him and the town council by ALL THE MEMBERS OF THE TOWN! Your lack of loyalty is noted over several months of meetings.
I have a few thoughts however: Mr. Plumb please sit up and at least look like you care! Ms Gleason please STOP saying you do not care, learn to add, as well as how to review a budget. Mr. MacIntyre and Mr. Little just stay home. Mr. Hamilton if you do not stop and think about the schools of Portsmouth with a bit more of your heart they will not be the equivalent of what you had when you went to them! Mr. Seveney and Mr. Canario, Thank you!

The author C.K. Chesterton writes: “We are all in the same boat on a stormy sea and we owe each other a terrible loyalty.”
The author Rensis Likert writes: “The greater the loyalty of a group toward the group, the greater is the motivation among the members to achieve the goals of the group, and the greater the probability that the group will achieve its goals.”

Finally, the author Grace Hooper writes: “Leadership is a two-way street, loyalty up, and loyalty down.
respect for one’s superior, care for one’s crew.”

So I guess my point is that the crew is not at all being cared for, the superiors are not so superior, the leadership is nonexistent, and the word loyalty is not listed in a few of the town council members dictionaries. Maybe they went to schools that had to cut the budget and the page with this word was not put in due to lack of funds.

Great Article John,
These councilors that voted down the budget just don’t seem to care and it seems that there is only one reason why...... they are not seeking re-election this November. So therefore they do not have to deal with the repercussions that are to come if the cap is not exceeded.
One person commented and hit the nail right on the head saying "Good ol' Huck Little, as usual, just sat there like a lump contributing nothing constructive" and the other three well one decided not to show up (plumb) and Gleason well she got me excited when she said she was not going to speak any more (boy was that a let down) and peter was too busy reading the newspaper and watching his grandkids play sports to do any of the work that he should be doing as an elected official. This had to be the worse run meeting I have ever had the displeasure to sit thru. A bunch of unprepared clowns in a circus act.
Bottomline is this town is in big trouble if this council can not get a budget passed this evening. See you tonight for the show. I hope they are serving cotton candy and snow cones!