Cox and Zimini hit the Column

From the Lowell Sun Political gossip colum:

COMPARE AND contrast.

On Tuesday, Dracut Selectman Bob Cox appeared to buck state ethics laws when he approved a liquor license for a private club where he sits on the board of directors. State law prohibits selectmen from taking any official action on matters involving organizations for which a selectman serves as an “officer, director, partner, employee or trustee.”

But Cox didn’t see a problem with voting for the one-day liquor license for the annual steer roast at the Centralville Sportsmen’s Club.

“I didn’t recuse myself because I never do. I just never felt the need,” Cox told The Sun.

Later at the same meeting, Selectman John Zimini abstained from voting on accepting a total of $8,000 to the Board of Appeals to pay for a financial peer review and traffic study peer review at Allard’s Grove, an affordable-housing plan for Nashua Road. Zimini regularly abstains from voting on 40B projects that come before the board because any action he takes as a public official could be considered a conflict of interest with his day job working at MassHousing, a quasi-public agency that bills itself as the state’s affordable housing bank.

John Zimini has been careful to recuse himself since it became public knowledge that he works for Mass Housing. Thats good to hear.  And it will probably help him some in his election in the spring, because the Louisburg Square issue will follow him there.

Box Cox has a problem.. he wears his heart on his sleeve. When he believes something is right, he pursues it, sometimes going too far to fight the good fight (again, remember Louisburg Square and the millions we lost over that).

In terms of this vote, I was uncomfortable when he mentioned he was on the Board of Directors of the club. But because the town counsel didn’t speak up, nor the town manager or the Chairman of the Board, I thought that the issue of his voting on that one day license had been cleared up prior to the meeting.

Cox called into the radio show on 980 WCAP yesterday to let us know that fellow board member Joe DiRocco had spoken to the town counsel prior to the meeting, and he had determined that there was not a problem with their voting on the liquor license.

In terms of the amendment.. once a discussion came up that went beyond the original simple vote for a one day license, I think Cox should have just backed off and recused himself… whether or not its legal for him to vote on it.  I’m sure he’ll check with counsel on what was the right thing to do, and handle the results.

The neighbors down there do have an issue they want to deal with. They probably should have asked to be put on the agenda in the future, or asked for a meeting with the board safety subcommittee directly.  No one has said if they had brought up their issues with the directors of the club prior to this.