As citizens of the Commonwealth we must understand that the General Assembly, established on July 30, 1619 (House of Burgesses at Jamestown), requires that local governments act in certain ways, and when they do not, citizens have recourse to address their grievances.

A lame duck council cannot bind a future council with future legislative actions. It is apparent that our staff understood that the July 1st seating gave them ample time to sign the contract before the future council could “deconstruct” it, but they were “missing” the part about the General Assembly’s criteria, and spirit of the law.

More importantly, if the future council were indeed going to rezone the property, they would in fact need to deconstruct the contract, to analyze and criticize it in all its manifestations. That’s the way the Founding Fathers designed it.

Also, I’m not sure that it is proper for our staff to be in the business of strategizing about the “possible electoral consequences” signing the contract might have had for the May election, as it appears they were in these emails. Even if you agree with the Town’s plans for the old school, it would seem reasonable to question the means by which they fulfilled them.