Common Sense For New Hampshire

I hate the switch to daylight savings.  Or is it from daylight savings?  Whatever.

I particularly hate the clock change that we have to do in the spring because I actually lose two hours.  The first hour just disappears like it was a donated Belmar gift card.  And I lose a second hour spent resetting all the clocks in my house (which happens to contain within it’s walls more clocks than the Greenwich Observatory.)  At least in the fall I break even.

Speaking of those gift cards, Mayor Doherty commented Tuesday on the investigation into the $9050 worth that has gone missing.  My own reaction to his remarks are in red italics:

“Recently Councilman Bean spoke about investigations. One of the investigations he spoke about was an investigation by the Monmouth County Prosecutors Office about the dispersement of the gift cards.  The reason why they’re investigating it is because Councilman Bean contacted them to investigate.” (Bean at this point interjected and had police chief Tom Palmisano confirm that it was his office that first contacted the county prosecutor.)   “Alright, let’s say it is the Chief.  The police department doesn’t just look into a difference in numbers, they look into things that are criminal.  That’s what a police department does.”   (Whoa.  Isn’t embezzlement, if it did occur here, a crime?  Some of the largest crimes ever committed were discovered because of a “difference of numbers”.  And it isn’t like it’s some negligible difference.  Nearly half the money is unaccounted for!)  But it’s not, and here’s the important thing, it’s not real.  But it is an investigation and let me give you an example.  Let’s say Councilwoman Blackburn’s bike went missing and Councilwoman Nicolay said to the Chief, you know, Chief, I think Matt Doherty stole Councilwoman Blackburn’s bike.  (He probably did.)  The Chief would be obligated  to contact me and say: “Matt, did you steal Councilwoman Blackburn’s bike?” and I would have to say: “No, I didn’t steal the bike.”  But was I investigated for it?  (Nodded yes)  Was I questioned about it?  (nodded yes)   It’s all true, but it’s not a real investigation.  (Here he is totally obfuscating the issue.  Bean did not tell the police who to investigate.  He only reported that the money, enough to buy about 50 bikes by the way, was missing.)  So I think it’s important to understand that when it comes to things like our gift cards and other investigations, they’re not real.  But you can always make an accusation about anything, for any reason, and there is an obligation under the police department or any other investigative body to actually investigate it.  Often times they go nowhere, but that doesn’t come out.  So it’s uh, you can make an accusation, it never goes anywhere, it just dies where it’s at.  (No, neither the Belmar Police Department, the county prosecutor’s office or for that matter the Sandy Fraud Unit of the state Attorney General’s office spend time investigating crimes for which there is no evidence that a crime took place.  Now I know these investigations may not get anywhere because people in the government are reluctant to make too much trouble for each other.  But don’t tell us that all these investigations are going on only because Jim Bean wanted them to.)

He then goes on to slam the Belmar Republicans over something I wrote in a post a couple of weeks ago on a different topic.

So anyway, here’s what we know.  Almost ten grand in gift cards is missing.  Jim Bean discovered that they were missing and reported it to the police.  The police, in turn, turned the investigation over to the county.

And we know the mayor is angry.

But is he angry that the cards are missing?  Or is he angry because you know about it?

And from the rest of the council:  silence.