Editorial: Town leader flees after casino flop

Thursday, January 29, 2009  

"What is Adam Bond’s problem?

The now former Middleboro selectmen chairman who has long had a thin skin and a “my way or the highway” attitude took his ball and went home at Monday’s meeting, quitting the Board of Selectmen with no notice. It was a strange performance, even by Bond’s standards.

Bond has been the biggest proponent in town government of bringing a casino to Middleboro. He led the charge to sign a deal with the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe to build a $1 billion gambling complex and then, when Wampanoag leadership was in disarray, tried to reopen the deal to get even better terms.

But Bond’s behavior lately has been unconventional and inappropriate for any town official. The outspoken Bond, apparently not pleased with his fellow selectmen, started writing a blog in which he was critical of selectmen and what was happening in town. These cheap shots were unfair and unacceptable. Bond claimed his Web musings were written as a private citizen, but that is nonsense. A town official doesn’t cease to be a public figure when the meeting ends. Selectmen everywhere know that, like it or not, they are on the job 24 hours a day and they cannot speak from the podium one moment and then write commentary on the Web the next and expect the public to differentiate which comments come from Selectman Bond and which come from Private Citizen Bond."

Get the Story:
OPINION: Selectman goes out in a blaze of glory (The Brockton Enterprise 1/29)

Related Story:
Many players, many issues (The Plymouth Bulletin 1/29)