In the latest edition of the Tines and Courier here is what Lancaster Town Administrator Orlando Pacheco has to say about OUR rifle range:
“Lancaster doesn’t want police barred from shooting at the Brandli parcel — it wants to talk. So said Town Administrator (TA) Orlando Pacheco this week, adding that he was disappointed with the anger and name-calling that followed Lancaster Building Inspector Peter Munro’s letter to Clinton selectmen, late last month, ordering them to “cease and desist” discharging of weapons at the rifle range off South Meadow Road.”
“We know the Clinton Police Department qualifies [its officers to carry firearms] in October,” Pacheco said Tuesday. “We wanted to send that, really, as a way of motivating them to file a special permit.
First off there is no WE in a unilateral decision. Pacheco reportedly ordered the Lancaster Building Inspector to issue the cease and desist order. I’m not so sure that it was at the request of any Lancaster resident either.
But was it as unilateral as it looked??? I’d make an educated guess or call it my opinion that it wasn’t. (The Lancaster BOS were out of the loop). As the story unfolds we find that the police officer that was verbally browbeat (this has been described as a hissy fit.) for practicing there was met at the gate by Clinton BOS Vice Chairman LeBlanc, his friend and a Clinton firefighter who lives nearby.
Second, isn’t it strange that instead of requesting to be on the agenda of a Clinton BOS meeting a cease and desist order was issued…to get Clinton to talk!? this is all too coincidental. Backpedaling is a better word to describe this. I’ll wager an educated guess that there was collusion between the two CLINTON selectmen involved as well as the Lancaster TA. Yes, the anti second amendment and anti law enforcement duo most likely called their willing ally in Lancaster and requested the cease and desist be ordered against their OWN police department. Now the Lancaster TA said it was to get Clinton to talk, fat chance. It was just another ham handed effort by our horrendous pair of self serving selectmen to silence the rifle range.
Another quote from the Times and Courier:
Dickhaut and LeBlanc also defended a meeting they had attended, separate from the other selectmen, to discuss the cease-and-desist order with the police chief and town administrator.
“On Sept. 20, I was called by two residents, one in Clinton, one in Lancaster,” LeBlanc said. “I was told there were two people shooting.” He walked to the property and “encounter[ed] one of Clinton’s police officers coming out of the range in his police vehicle with a private citizen. … I thought the [2007] cease-and-desist order applied uniformly.”
LeBlanc asked for the meeting with Police Chief Mark Laverdure, “just to have a discussion,” he said. “I didn’t believe there was disciplinary action required.”
This is a half assed mea culpa, two selectmen meeting with the police chief without the rest of the BOS knowing anything about it and for a for a pretty long meeting, then asking him to order his men to not use the range is a bit more than a “DISCUSSION“. This borders on an abuse of power to get their self serving agenda item finished.
Of course there was no disciplinary action required, the police have always qualified there and should in perpetuity. that range is Clinton’s range and has been for 80 plus years. The chief is being put in the middle by this pair.
These selectmen should be finished, thrown out of office when their terms are up. We don’t need self serving, power abusing officials who have no clue what our real issues are. look no further than this…
…The state has said it would be cutting local aid again and this inept pair hasn’t even started looking at ways to save jobs…yes proactively looking at all options to save law enforcement, firefighters, DPW workers, school personel and non-union employees. Once again Clinton Selectmen are playing their fiddles while Clinton burns, it’s just absolutely unbelievable and so damn amateurish!