Another day, another outrage.
That's the story of the Essex Regional Retirement Board whose indifference to the public's interest has reached the point of the absurd.
A simple question was posed to the pension board's longtime executive director, Timothy Bassett by Ipswich Town Treasurer Kevin Merz: How does one go about running for the seat on the board reserved for a member of the ERRB's advisory council?
The response? That's for me to know and you to find out.
Well, it wasn't exactly that blatant. Bassett sent Merz an e-mail saying he was having the board's legal counsel check out the matter. That was two months ago, and as of last Friday Merz was still waiting for that opinion, with the incumbent's term due to expire Dec. 31.
It should be simple. The towns, local housing authorities and other municipal entities whose pension systems are administered by the ERRB, make up the advisory council and are supposed to elect one person to represent their interests on the board.
But nothing is ever simple in the topsy-turvy world of these boards that administer our public pension systems. The current advisory council representative, Rockport Town Treasurer Roberta Josephson, earlier this month cast the lone dissenting vote against transferring the board's funds to the state Pension Reserves Investment Trust. Sounds like she ought to be replaced (she told reporter Steve Landwehr last week she has not decided whether to seek re-election), since most of the towns — including her own — had indicated they wanted their money moved to the state system.
However, figuring out a way onto a board that has operated for too long as a sort of secret club for Essex County insiders, is not an easy task as Merz has discovered.
Given the profligate spending exposed in recent years, it's a club whose motto could easily be: "It's your money, but none of your business how we spend it."
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