Childish Actions

                  Former first selectman  Edward B. St. John

was surprised when he found a package from UPS leaning on his front door recently, but he was even more surprised by its contents.

 It was his portrait from the walls of the Middlebury Volunteer Fire Department. The photo had been removed from the department’s Tucker Hill Road fire house after members decided St. John had “disgraced” the department.

 “It’s not a big deal,” said Fire Chief Paul J. Perrotti.

 “It was probably just better to get it out of the equation. We didn’t buy that picture, and we’ve had other pictures duplicated in my tenure. It’s back to its rightful owner, and this wasn’t done to harass him.”

 St. John, who was the department’s chief in the 1960s and 1970s, said Friday he 

was upset his picture was removed. He has since hung the portrait with other 

memorabilia in his home.

 “I am upset, and this is what’s upsetting to me: it’s nothing but childish, and will 

continue to be just that,” he said. “It just goes to show you what happens when you fall out of favor with our fire chief. They’re trying to recreate history, and that’s not how we do business.”

 He said he wants First Selectman Thomas Gormley to take action on the matter to deter­mine what can be hung in public buildings.

 “I told him (Perrotti) you have to pick your bat­tles, and this is not one we should be concerned about,” Gormley said. “I have too much on my plate to be worrying about pictures, but I person­ally think because Ed was a chief it shouldn’t have been done.”

The portrait was not leaning on Mr. St. John’s door.  It was signed by Eva. 

Mr. St. John calls the action childish.

Was it childish to appoint a fire commission to harass the MVFD for a year and a half, that stonewalled apparatus replacement, attempted to interfere in the fireground chain of command, and attempted to delay repair of life-saving equipment?

Was it childish to waste $9,000 of taxpayer money to hire a consultant to tell him what he had already knew back in 2003 about apparatus replacement?

Was it childish to delay apparatus replacement since 2003, creating a condition where taxpayers are facing replacing 4 pieces of fire apparatus over the age of 20 years old, and another to be over 20 in three years? This will cost the taxpayers thousands of dollars more in additional taxes.

Was it childish to go after the fire department for the cell phone incident, when it was the MVFD itself, and not the Town that discovered the problem and resolved it within 48 hours?  Was it childish for Mr. St. John and his cronies to force the MVFD to hire a lawyer regarding an incident that had already been resolved? Was it childish to accuse Chief Perrotti of wrong doing when there was no evidence of such, and there was no Town-wide cell phone policy.  In fact it was the MVFD that created a policy after the fact, and the Town wanted a copy of it so they could adopt the same policy.

Was it childish to force the Chief to sign a document that had all the credibility of a North Korean confession, that attempted to lay blame on him about trading a Town car for a golf cart and a sum of money, when in order to execute the deal Mr. St. John would have had to sign over the title?  In that same document, was it childish for Mr. St. John to accuse the Fire Chief of misspending Town funds when he attempted to use Westover money to install an outside service at Memorial School that would have benefited the entire community?  Since Westover funds are a gift to the MVFD and not Taxpayer money, this was a joke.  In addition the bill was never paid by  Mr. St. John. 

Was it childish for Mr. St. John to hand over documents to Mr. Heidkamp who in turn created a 43 page smear against the MVFD, when he was charged with being the Chairman of the fire commission who was suppose to be helping the MVFD? He presented his dissertation to the charter revision commission in order to try to sway them into making  the fire commission permanent.

Was it childish of Mr. St. John to not allow the Charter Revision vote to be divided into separate questions, even ignoring a petition signed by almost 200 residents requesting it be divided into separate questions? Mr. St. John thought that all the good revisions in the Charter change would overshadow the fact that the MVFD was against the Charter change that included a Fire Commission.  But, not allowing a separate vote, positive elements in the Charter change were lost, which hurts the entire community. 

Was it childish to attempt to not provide the $15,000.00 in matching funds in order to secure the almost $300,000.00 radio grant, even though his fire commission had known about the matching funds requirement for months?

Was it then childish to attempt at the 11th hour to derail the radio installation by refusing to allow the MVFD to replace an existing antenna with a smaller antenna in order to complete the radio installation by the December deadline? Mr. St. John wanted the MVFD to spend thousands to hire an engineer to do a study on the tower.

Was it childish to install surveillance cameras at the MVFD so Mr. St. John could remotely spy on the members, even from his boat?

Was it childish of his office to question whether or not EMTs and the ambulance were properly insured when he knew they were?  This forced the MVFD to spend thousands of dollars to hire a lawyer to sort out the problem?

Was it childish of Mr. St. John to have spend thousands of dollars in taxpayer money to draw up a one sided, ridiculous ambulance agreement, that would have in essence seized the ambulance away from the MVFD and handed over all money that is earned by the ambulance back to the Town. All money collected by the ambulance billing goes directly back into maintaining and purchasing a new ambulance.  Mr. St. John’s plan would have most likely purchased more dump trucks.

Was it childish for Mr. St. John stall payment for MVFD training computer, even though he was told there was finite time limit in order for the MVFD to take advantage of a rebate that would have saved the MVFD $200.00?

Was it childish for Mr. St. John to sign MVFD documents with Ph.D. after his name when he admits he never has had the degree?

Was it  Mr. St. John who admitted in his  court case last spring to taking underage MVFD Juniors to Rhode Island and giving them alcohol? 

Was it childish for Mr. St. John not to step away when he left office, and now has positioned himself on the RTC so that he can derail Tom Gormley's administration, because Tom Gormley refused to continue Mr. St. John's reign of terror against the MVFD?

Is it childish for Mr. St. John to use Mr. DeAngelis in order to "get even" with Perrotti and the MVFD?

Is it childish for Mr. St. John to get involved with Mr. DeAngelis and attend FOI hearings, where he seeks to see records of MVFD private funds (not taxpayer funds) ?

No one is rewriting history here, we are just listing it.

Kudos to Tom Gormley who understands that there are larger problems in Middlebury than Mr. St. John’s picture.