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Mayor Conducts Illegal Negotiations
Published 02/08/99

Lawrence Mayor Patricia Dowling has made an offer to Superintendent Mae Gaskins to buy out the superintendent’s contract. According to school committee policy the Mayor has no authority to negotiate on behalf of the committee without a public vote of the committee to do so. To date the school committee has never taken a public vote to appoint the mayor as their negotiating agent to make any offer to the Superintendent.

School committee policy B-2 states the following;

“The committee consists of the mayor of Lawrence and six additional members who are elected to serve four year terms.”

“The school committee has authority only when acting as a body. Individual members have no authority over school affairs except at the expressed direction of the committee.”

The mayor has no authority other than sitting as a voting member of the school committee
with the exceptions spelled out in Policy number B-6

"The mayor of the city of Lawrence serves as chairman of the school committee and shall preside at all meetings, regulate the proceedings and decide all questions of order."

No where in the school committee policy, the city charter, Robert’s Rules of Order, or the agreement with the State Department of Education does the mayor have any authority to negotiate a buyout with the superintendent or anyone else.

During the Scully hearings Mayor Mary Claire Kennedy was brought up on censure charges for conducting herself in violation of these policies because she was admittedly involved in offering secret buyout deals to Jim Scully. Kennedy had met secretly with John
Silber in 1997 to negotiate on behalf of the committee and was highly criticized by four committee members for exceeding her authority.

Dowling has publicly admitted to engaging in secret negotiations with David Driscol and making a buyout offer to Mae Gaskins. The school committee has never taken a vote to give mayor Dowling the authority to negotiate on their behalf.