Tonight's Portsmouth Town Council meeting saw a great step forward for the Wind Turbine project, and what looked like a carefully orchestrated campaign to plant doubts in the public's mind about the ongoing School audit. About 25 people were in attendance when the meeting kicked off on a wonderful note, with the Portsmouth Lions donating $500 from a fundraiser to support Glen Farm. Big thank you to the Lions!

After some preliminary housekeeping — the yearly liquor and victualer licensing and some committee appointments — the Council heard from the Economic Development Committee (EDC) Chair Rich Talipsky and Sustainable Energy Subcommittee leader Gary Gump, who had provided the Council with the ready-to-be-issued Request for Proposal (RFP). Yes, we're ready to go buy a turbine! But wait! Who hasn't said anything daffy in a while? Ohhhh, yeah, right. Tailgunner Gleason. After picking away at why the RFP didn't include a quote for tearing the turbine down in 25 years at the end of its lifespan (uh...WTF?) she let loose with this diatribe.

"I don't want to be negative by any means," she began, and then proceeded to be, well, negative. "Before the referendum, I was concerned about risk. Because I don't have a sure guarantee, I'm going to vote against you tonight. I will continue to thoroughly read and assess the situation going forward, I will continue to ask my questions. [Hey, kids, remember how much Tailgunner loves QUESTIONS?] I want a guarantee. I'm not going against you, I'm just not going along with you."

Huck Little doesn't say a lot at Council meetings, but he responded to this. "I think we have to go with the voters," he said. Good on ya, Huck. The Council voted 6-1 to approve the RFP, with Tailgunner Gleason the lone "no." Let's start keeping track of this. We're only a year out from the election, and I think everyone in Portsmouth should start noticing how often Gleason votes no (despite an overwhelming majority of the Town voting for wind in the referendum) or saying that she doesn't have enough information to make up her mind ("still a little bit hazy" on the transfer station sticker, six months after she approved the budget.)

The Council also voted to seek low interest loans from the RI Renewable Energy Fund to cover the difference between the bond and the anticipated cost of the turbine (again, this has all been factored into the proposal.) This was approved unanimously, as was a motion to create a "construction oversight" committee separate from the EDC. (So let me get this straight...she voted to create a committee to oversee an RFP that she voted against? Is it just me, or does this make no freaking sense?)

Speaking of making no sense, there was a contingent there tonight who began attacking Berkshire Advisors, the firm contracted to conduct the performance audit of Portsmouth's schools. And what were they attacking? That Berkshire had asked for a steering committee, comprising members of the Council, School Committee, and Town and School administration which would meet with them for periodic progress reviews.

"What we have here then is 6 elected officials and that bothers me," said Peter McIntyre. "This whole idea was to get an audit team in here. Why not have the elected officials out of the picture." He left no doubt about where he was going with this line of questioning. "Maybe Berkshire doesn't realize how we got here."

Tailgunner couldn't resist another opportunity to complain that she was uninformed. "I've gotten different answers," she whined, about the purpose of the steering committee, and argued that Finance Director Dave Faucher should be sufficient. "The rest of us — I don't understand why we're all there. Why are we all there?"

Indeed, Tailgunner. Why are you there?

Councilor Len Katzman provided the simple answer. "We're paying them $85K, and they say they want this group, they say this is how they function best. They are going to be interviewing all Council and School Committee members. There's no big secret conspiracy being cooked up."

Council President Dennis Canario expressed concerns. The whole idea, he said, was to "Take the politics out of it. All of a sudden now. Everybody's involved. Are we going to get an unbiased opinion from this company?" But illustrating his typical sense of balance, he went on to say, "I just don't want Portsmouth to be anything different than anything they've done anywhere else. If this is their norm, I can accept that. I just pictured it differently."

"I think we can stop digging," said Councilor Seveney. "The liaisons from the Town Council are there ensuring quality product. The School Committee are there as experts so that Berkshire is not fumbling around when someone could hand information to them in 15 minutes. We should bring them here and the Council should ask them whether this is forfeiting any independence."

From the audience, Cheshire Kathy Melvin tried her usual rhetorical ju-jitsu. "I want what you want. A final report that the public will have great confidence in." Then she sprang the trap, saying that having a steering committee meant "we are going to be a party to Berkshire's findings and recommendations." and that this was "raising concerns in the mind of the public." Then she pushed on down that slippery slope. "The Town would like to see this professional organization go in there unimpeded," she said, "a steering committe adds nothing to the process — just elected officials trying to influence the outcome."

See how she goes from a position everyone can agree with (yes, we all want a good report) to injecting an unsupported assertion (a steering committee means being party to the findings) and jumping to an unsubstantiated generalization (this is raising questions in the mind of the public.)

Then, gee, look who's back. It's Dame Judy Staven. "All this does is bring doubts into the public's mind," she asserted, as if it were a fact. "It makes no sense to me. What do lawyers say — the appearance of impropriety? It waters the whole thing down."

Indeed. It is worth recalling that if you begin with a false premise, you can prove anything. It was at this point that I had to get up and attempt to set the record straight. A steering committee is standard practice in consulting, and having progress reviews to sanity-check interim results is absolutely expected behavior. Consulting firms are aware of the partisan feelings of the folks they work for, but to assume that they are influenced displays a real ignorance of the consulting process.

Matt Daily took the podium and said it more succinctly: "Either you trust that they're independent or you don't."

But here's my take: it's not ignorance. This is what we call in media theory "innoculation." The PCC and their fellow travelers have attempted to vaccinate the public with the idea that the performance audit results are tainted. Now, if they don't like what comes back in six months, they are on the record with an objection, and they can point back to the partisan meddling of that evil steering committee. Don't believe me? Okay. Wait. Let's see what happens.