As several people have raised question about the 5% administrative fee I mention in the latter part of this piece, I decided to contact Roger Marcoux of the Sheriff’s Association for clarification.  His response is now posted in comments

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I bring these stories of Franklin County municipal monkey-business to the GMD community both to entertain you and as object lessons in how far out of whack the local process can become when citizens don’t keep their hands upon the throttle.

The melodrama over the St. Albans Town policing contract continues to unfold.  Sheriff Robert Norris is now suing the City of St. Albans for “predatory pricing” practices and is seeking an injunction to prevent the Town’s contract with the City from going into effect.

As you may recall, the Town Selectboard voted by a margin of 3 to 2 to award that contract to the City of St. Albans, whose bid for the job came in at one-million dollars less than the Sheriff’s bid.  

There was a general rhubarb raised over this decision by the Sheriff and his merry band, egged-on by Selectboard Chair Bill Nihan who had flip-flopped to the pro-Sheriff side in time to represent one of the two dissenting votes, after initially saying he supported awarding the contract to the City.  But then, it was coming up to election time, and Mr. Nihan needed those pro-sheriff voters in order to squeak by for re-lection… which he did, by just twelve ballots.

In the previous election, he had barely made it by two votes; and we are now learning that those two ballots may be presumed to have been from his two sons who live and work in New York City (in the financial industry, of course), as they have apparently been routinely voting in St. Albans for years despite little to suggest that they ever lived here!  According to the Messenger, the voter status of those two junior Nihans is currently under investigation.  But that’s another story for another time…

There was also a star-turn by the Town Manager, Christine Murphy, who, we are led to believe, took it upon herself to approach the Sheriff for a new, lower bid after the Selectboard had already voted to award the contract to the City.

I’ve seen video-tape of the Selectboard meeting following this indiscretion, and came away with the distinct impression that someone put her up to it.  It was, to put it mildly, a complete circus, stage-managed on the eve of the Town Meeting vote to bring out the Sheriff’s supporters and get them to the polls.

The Sheriff is alleging that the difference between the City’s original price quote for services, given in 2007, and the one given in 2010 is evidence of price-fixing.  Says the Sheriff, the City is trying to monopolize police services.  This, despite the fact that, according to the Messenger, the Sheriff’s office currently provides coverage for 62% of Franklin County’s population and the City only serves 15%.  Even with the City holding the new contract for Town policing, the Sheriff’s share of the county pie will only be reduced to 50%, while the City’s share would rise to 28%.

Beyond the obvious incongruity of the Sheriff’s monopoly claim, there is the small matter that both entities are public services, and municipal police services are exempt by law from anti-trust regulation.  

Of course, in order to qualify for a preliminary injunction, the matter must represent some irreparable harm or injury to the plaintiff.  According to the Messenger,

“Only economic loss that threatens the survival of a movant’s (plaintiff’s) business amount to irreparable harm,” city lawyers said, quoting case law. “Plaintiff claims a monetary loss here, but provides no evidence of a threat to the ‘survival of his business.”

Wait a second!  “His business?!!”  I thought this guy’s business was doing the work of the elected Sheriff of Franklin County!  

I rather doubt anyone  remembers a little piece I wrote way back in July of last year about “Benefits Bob.” That’s the way some folks apparently refer to Sheriff Norris.  

At the time, Norris, a nominal Democrat, was being challenged in the upcoming election by a couple of Republicans, and one of them, Paul Moritz, had an interesting take on how the office might better be served.  He pointed to the $65,000. salary that the Sheriff was paid by the state and promised that, unlike Mr. Norris, should he win election he would “make do” with this modest compensation, returning the 5%  “administrative fee” charged on private contracts, to the Department.  You see, the custom is for that “administrative fee” to go straight into Sheriff Norris’ pocket, raising his annual income from $65,000. to $112,000.   I believe I called it a “handsome” $112,000.

No wonder Sheriff Norris sees an injury to his personal “business” in award of the contract to the City!  There are some other shenanigans alleged to have happened within the Sheriff’s Department, but, as Mr. Moritz lost his bid for the office, I doubt we’ll hear much more about them for a while.

Sometimes I think I’ve stumbled onto the set of “Green Acres.”