In Your Opinion: Township Council Failed The Test

By Rob Trautmann, Somerset.

I had the occasion to attend the Franklin Township Council meeting last night, September 13, 2018. The theme of the evening was the public letting their disdain for Councilman Rajiv Prasad and the remainder of the council known. The only council member to emerge from the meeting with a passing grade is Ted Chase who called for Prasad’s resignation. Honorable mention goes to Mayor Phil Kramer for demanding a reason to forgive be given to the council and the public from Prasad.

A few things of note came from the remainder of the council members’ remarks. First, several of the members asked the public to allow them to digest what was said before making any comments. This is a basic stall tactic. Not one thing spoken by the public imparted new knowledge to the council, therefore what do they need to digest? They knew this issue was coming, they knew what Prasad did and yet they were not willing to take action. Surely these cowardly members of the council hope that we will all forget this whole mess by next meeting. We will not.

Further, special mention must be made of Councilman Carl Wright. After the close of council remarks, Councilman Wright took the opportunity to criticize the members of the public, including myself, who made the decision to leave the meeting at that point. What Wright may not know is that all of those people arrived early or on time for the meeting’s start at 7 p.m., unlike Wright who seems to struggle with making it to meetings on time. These people sat for two hours listening to the discussion of Prasad’s disgusting behavior. When it was over they left. Wright then criticized us for leaving to tend to our families or other affairs, saying we should stay because after all the council is “spending your money.” Perhaps Wright is unaware that these meetings are recorded and broadcast on television and the minutes are available for review. We do not need to attend the live meeting to keep an eye on you, we need to attend the live meetings to tell you, our employees, how you are doing. In case you missed the memo Carl, you are doing poorly.

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