GilfordGrok

UPDATE II:  The PDF of the settlement is here.

UPDATE:  Now, I ticked - it wasn't $37K - it was ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND and 37K ??

I sent the following to Scott Dunn, the Town Administrator:

Hi Scott,

Question for you - do I need to file a Right To Know request to find out the Selectmens' vote to settle with Juris?
-Skip 

What I got back was this:

On 1/13/2010 9:05 AM, Scott Dunn wrote:

Here is a copy of the settlement agreement.

The minutes of the meeting where the agreement was reviewed and approved
by the Board were sealed during a non-public session.

I have the PDF - I will post it up later on today.  My return email was this:

On 1/13/2010 9:20 AM, Skip Murphy wrote:

So the public is NOT going to know if the vote was a 2-1 or a 3-0?

For how long are the minutes sealed?

-Skip 

OK, John, Kevin, and Gus, how long did you seal them for? You going to let us know how you voted?

My take away?  I don't know how much would have been at risk if a trial had gone forward.  It looks like the Local Government Center may have taken the lead on this (being the insurer) and just paid Juris off.

So the message, and morale of the story is - just sue, even if it looks like a loser - and get paid off by the Town and LGC.

I want to know who caved in!  While it may have been the checkbook of the LGC that ante'd up most of the zeros to the left of the decimal place on the check, the Selectmen (Gus, Kevin, and John) had to have had a vote to agree to "buy peace" as the PDF puts it.

Such a price to pay - Juris is smiling all the way to the bank.

I still give kudos to Gus and Connie for doing the right thing, but this was not.

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Both the Citizen and the Sun ran stories that basically heralded the end of the Juris era in Gilford.  Yes, his actual tenure ended March of 2008, but this lawsuit kept the door opened ajar against a final closing.

Now we know the final amount - and Juris has to pay his lawyer and the Feds their due of that amount.

A couple of points:

• I still wish that the Selectmen had pushed it right to the end and not settled.
• Who gets paid first: the Feds in income taxes or the lawyers?  In this case, I'm rooting (oh my gosh, I can't believe I'm saying this!) for the Feds to get theirs first....for obvious fallout reason.

Lastly, the Citizen article had this:

"The purpose of the release is to 'buy peace' from further dispute and controversy" between Juris and the town, states the agreement, signed on Nov. 11.

I ask:

Why has it taken almost two months for this information to come out?

'Bye, Evans...