"Regionalization" needs more review

One has to think that this shared services agreement/regionalized health services issue has to come up at Monday's City Council meeting.

Because Amesbury's Board of Health is not happy, according to this report in the Daily News.

I can see that: the BOH was not made privy to the agreement, a draft of which is in committee with our City Council. The agreement is due to go into effect on July 1, so again we have a "rush" situation that involves unhappy/disgruntled people.

Specifically, Amesbury's BOH is losing members faster than trucks are coming into the landfill.

And when Todd McGrath announced just prior to the meeting's close that he was stepping down from the board, that brought the original five-member board to just three members. Former Chairman Phillip Yetman resigned two weeks ago.

The three communities involved in the agreement - Amesbury, Newburyport and Salisbury - are all supposed to retain their boards of health.

Unfortunately, I can't see where Newburyport officials and sadly Amesbury's leaders play well with others. I know people in Amesbury are a little feisty (my new favorite word), but this attitude of "I know what's best so shut up" isn't going to fly.

One animal control officer for all 3 communities? Salisbury's ACO thinks the job is his for the asking but Newburyport is interviewing people without being specific about what job the interviews are for (could be the night/weekend person, but no one knows).

This isn't regionalizing, this is a power play - why does Jack Morris automatically get to be in charge? Shouldn't the job have been advertised and interviews conducted by all three communities?

These same people were telling Everett what to do about the landfill and now they are dictating to Amesbury: get rid of your long-time ACO, you don't need to review the agreement ... does any of this sound familiar?