Is Meeting Attendance Really the Issue, Mr. Guttman?

I was very surprised to see a letter to the editor in the Monroe Courier of Thursday Oct 24th from the Chair of the Republican Town Committee, Mr. Jeff Guttman, attacking Mr. Kapoor for missing some Town Council meetings.  After all, Mr. Guttman has missed 3 of 16 Board of Education meetings from Jan 7th through Oct 7th, which is the last date that official minutes are available.

I don’t see Mr. Guttman criticizing Republican members of the BOE, one of which has missed 5 of the 16 meetings and another that has missed 4 of the 16. 

I also don’t see Mr. Guttman complaining about Republican Town Council members that miss meetings.  Just from the minutes that I have, I can identify two Republican Town Council members that each missed two of their budget workshops. If you include the post-referendum meetings, the number increases. There are also two Republican members that have each missed two regular Town Council meetings.

What about the single Town Council member – another Republican – that missed three special meetings, one on Honeywell, one on Sandy Hook, and one on pending litigation.

Mr. Guttman did point out that Mr. Kapoor missed these meetings because of required school classes, but maybe he should stick to attacking Mr. Kapoor on policy positions, since clearly Republicans miss as many, if not more meetings, then their Democratic colleagues.

Steve Kirsch