D'Angelo steps down
Published on June 30th, 2004
STONEHAM, MA -Fed up with what he labels consensus-driven politics, Finance and Advisory Board member Peter D'Angelo will formally resign from public office this week after donning the title of town official for over 25 years.
A vocal member of the anti-override faction that successfully labored to see June's Proposition 2 1/2 ballot question defeated, D'Angelo decided to submit his resignation to the Finance Board after becoming disillusioned with the political process over the past few months.
"I just think the process is consensus driven in the sense that you have a Board of Selectmen, a School Committee and a Finance Board that tries to present a position they can all agree on rather than offering views that aren't necessarily aligned, financially speaking," explained D'Angelo.
"I believe its important that there be a more significant balance from a spending and expense standpoint...What we're doing is looking for ways to pay for everything and we're thinking in a box," he added.
Defending the budget approach taken by the three boards, Finance Board member Jim Grayson felt that given the fiscal difficulties facing Stoneham in FY05, presenting anything other than a unified front would have been inappropriate.
"The Finance Board under Richard [Gregorio] and then John [Warren] tried to work with the School Committee and the Selectmen to come up with a consensus," Grayson remarked. "The last thing we wanted was to go to Town Meeting and say the Finance Board thinks this while the School Committee is of this opinion. We felt that was inappropriate."
Despite differences of opinion over the override and the process that led up to the June 15 vote, Grayson and fellow Finance Board members lamented the loss of D'Angelo.
"Personally, I'm going to miss Peter. He just knew a lot [about town finances] and he brought a lot to the board in terms of knowledge and expertise. I'm sorry he feels so strongly about this issue that he needs to resign. I hope sometime when the dust settles that he decides to come back," Grayson commented.
"I asked that he stay on and he decided to go in a different direction. Peter's a great guy and he has a lot of knowledge. I'm sorry to see him go," added Finance Board Chairman Richard Gregorio.
Despite his plans to end his long-standing public tenure -- which included a three-year stint as Town Moderator, a 15-year run on the School Committee, and nearly eight-years experience on the Finance Board -- D'Angelo will by no means fade away from the town's political theatre.
Instead, the former Raytheon Chief Financial Officer will work with resident advocacy group Stoneham Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility to implement several budgetary reforms.
"I'm not leading anything here. I'd like to stress that I'm working in a mutual effort with other taxpayers in town. I think it's incumbent on us to make sure there's a good turnout at Town Meeting because that's where it all begins," said D'Angelo.
Several other top priorities D'Angelo will fight to see implemented include: funding the retirement board's multi-million dollar health insurance liabilities, altering what he believes to be a top-down school department budget philosophy that favors administrative positions, and instituting a more future-minded budget process that includes a three-to-five year financial forecast.
Addressing one of his biggest pet peeves with the budget process, D'Angelo firmly believes town officials need to stop relying on revenues to operate the town, a narrow financial philosophy that led to this year's override request, the Finance Board member argues.
"What happens is we put a ruler to all the revenues and say, 'gee we're short'. And this year we couldn't find the revenue so we turned that into an override need. Take [last Town Meeting's] underride question that failed by six votes. When you look at the people who voted against it, it was the school people," D'Angelo remarked.
"So here I saw the proponents of the override voting no on the underride. Those are people who want to protect the revenue stream at all costs. [But if the override had passed] we would have driven all of the elderly out of town. And guess what, it's not other elderly moving in, it's families with children who in turn drive up the school costs again. So instead of making Stoneham the place where people live, retire and finish out their years, we're taking a financial 2 X 4 to them."
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