[Cross-posted to Broadsides.org]

By now, anyone who cares already knows that Montpelier’s city government came forward last week with the head-spinning admission that – whoops – they made a $400,000 error. And if that’s not bad enough, Mayor Mary Hooper and Town Manager Bill Fraser are also admitting that they have been purposely “not disclosing” this error to the town’s taxpayers for several years. Yes, years.

The Times Argus broke the story last week, right before – wink, wink – Hooper & Fraser, et al said they were about to go public with the information themselves. [Editorial assertion: Yeah, right.]

And the back-story is as dumb as it is simple: The town got goofy with digits and issued a check to a contractor for nearly $400,000 more than the correct $50,000ish owed to him. And the smarmy contractor cashed it, paid off a debt or two and then, when finally confronted more than a year later, said: “The money’s gone.”

Now, if this were happening to mere citizen mortals, this would be the point in the story where law enforcement was contacted and any and all legal measures were put into place to recover the money. No such luck here, because Hooper & Fraser et al decided to make their situation worse by “not disclosing” (read: hiding) it from the public AND entering a multi-year re-payment plan with a man who had already shown all his cards when it came to his ethics.

I know, let’s call it: “Operation: Dumb, squared.” Just because.

But the deed is done.

“Mistakes were made,” declared Mayor Hooper to WDEV’s Mark Johnson this morning, while in the midst of a rather Nixon-like ramble about “feeling bad,” “understanding the urge to feel bad,” and “feeling so bad that she feels like throwing up in the morning.” Um, too much information, Mayor.

But the reality here is that Mayor Mary Hooper must go. And probably Bill Fraser too. Because this mistake, its non-disclosure, and the awkward, unconvincing and – frankly – insulting manner in which Hooper has tried to spin it, is a huge mistake that will have a tremendous economic impact to Montpelierites.

It’s sadly ironic that the “good liberals” in Montpelier have been deafly silent on what is already being called Hooper’s Watergate. That’s what happens when party loyalty usurps better judgment: you start to ignore gross neglect when “among friends.” Ouch.

Imagine, for example, if a similar story was breaking statewide with regards to a Jim Douglas mistake. The response from the liberal Dems would be, “Outrage! Outrage! Outrage!” As it should be.

But when their own house starts to stink, they sound like little more than a field of crickets in response. Carry on, because there’s no one here but us crickets.

Let me repeat: Hooper must go.