Splitting hairs? No. Picking on Marge? Absolutely!

I asked the first question of the Commissioners, two of them anyway, on Wednesday morning: If someone is appointed to take Sheriff Scott Carr’s place from now until January (when the newly elected Sheriff will take over), who does the appointing, you guys (the one gal was late to the meeting but at least she showed up this time) or the Delegation? I was told “the Delegation.”

The Delegation is a compilation of all the County’s State Representatives whose Chair is Betsey Patten and the Vice is KHS golfer Gene Chandler. Their function is to oversee what the Commissioners do. Unlike the Commissioners, they take no heat from the prying press. There are 14 (I think) Dels. I asked the question because I had heard the rumor that Carr was going to resign and at that time, I queried the Comms, “Who would he submit his resignation to?” “The Delegates,” said Chairman Sorenson after silently polling the other two by checking left and right. It left me with the feeling he wasn’t sure.

During the meeting this week I was told that the Commissioner’s only have say so over the Sheriff’s budget. It is not clear whether they have oversight with authority when it comes to spending that budget but Dave Babson, who is mentoring me in the ways of State and County gov and is running for the State Senate for the Republicans says, “They have no such authority. He (the Sheriff) is an elected official and the only way to control what he does is to un-elect him.”

Back to my Q: Cap’t Jon Hebert, a Bartlett lad and KHS grad who has retired and come back as a part-timer, was at Wednesday’s meeting to explain how the department of 45 employees is being run with the Sheriff gone in person for the last few weeks and gone officially in ten days.

Hebert who is an articulate speaker, well in command of the facts laid out for anyone to understand what needs to take place during the next six months, and quoted the RSA (104:14) that gives the Delegation the authority to appoint an interim Sheriff. He said that he is not and will not be running for the County’s top cop job but is willing to stay until January if needed. He explained that as the Operations Chief (I think) his job is at the behest of the Sheriff and the next Sheriff will want to name his own number two. Hebert said he was “looking out for my family’s financial welfare beyond life at the Sheriff’s Department.”

I’ve know Hebert well enough to say hello to for many years. Listening to him I got the impression that it is too bad he’s not running. All that experience and stage presence, he’s just the kind of guy that could sweep the scandals of the department out the door and order a new broom. Either he figures to make a lot more than the Sheriff’s $60K salary or he is chary of the kind of exposure that his boss got.

On that. I’ve talked to other law enforcement folks who think that what Carr did to get so much attention from the press was stupid and insensitive but not illegal. Tamworth’s Chief, Dan Poirier who is a candidate for Sheriff, said, “I wouldn’t have done it. It just doesn’t look right. But I don’t think he broke any laws.”

I want to ask Scott, who has always been chummy with me, would you do it again knowing that you would get such scrutiny?

Scott blames the press for having his “good name” dragged through the ink but as one reporter said to me, “What would we write about if a guy [like Hebert] was running the show?”

Commissioner Marge, who has time to get one particular constituent fired for “harassing” her, but couldn’t make it to the public input part of the meeting on time, came breezing in (“A sail, a sail” – Mercutio) just before Chairman Sorenson ended the session exactly on time. Not one more question. It’s slightly possible that it was coincidental timing but I know that I and some others wanted to know if Marge learned a whole lot on her latest junket, this time to Kansas City. I thought it ironic that on the way in I heard on NHPR that the Governor had asked lawmakers to approve a “continuation of the ban on unnecessary out of state travel.” Naturally, I was deeply interested in her opinion on such a statement from the States highest officer and, if she felt an obligation to help him trim the budget. Her defiance of the other two Commissioners efforts to clip her wings is the only answer anyone needs, but Marge’s cranky quips are always reportable. As Vern Albright used to say, “That’s my little Margie.”

Anygate, after the meeting Commissioners met below stairs in their offices (without posting such a meeting) and summoned Captain Hebert in to anoint him the interim Sheriff. According to an inside source who was kicked out of the office when he started nosing around, though they would like to kick him out just on g.p., Hebert wisely asked that the request be put in writing which they did. Alrighty then. The Comms can appoint him to do this without the Delegation being consulted after telling me in answer to a direct question, that will appear in the minutes, that the Delegation are the ones who appoint and we are not supposed to think that “something stinks in Denmark” (not Mercutio).

We don’t really know if it “stinks” but there is a whiff of incompetence mixed with ignorance of their legal duty/rules of operation, and certainly overtones of nincompoopery.

The Commissioners meet every Wednesday and begin promptly at 8:15. Try to catch it.