The Norfolk Boomerang

Norfolk, Massachusetts

 

Posted: Friday, May 14, 2010

4:45 p.m. EDT

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By Matt McDonald

 

 

The police escort that Norfolk police plan to give Governor Deval Patrick on his way out of town tomorrow was requested by the head of the Norfolk Democratic Town Committee, not by the Patrick campaign, sources familiar with the request said.

 

The police escort, first reported in The Norfolk Boomerang two weeks ago, escalated into a minor flap late this week after Patrick critics posted messages about it on Twitter.

 

Twitter is an online social networking site that allows people to post short messages, known as “tweets.” The postings on Patrick’s police escort generated interest from state Republicans and from Boston reporters.

 

The gist of the criticism was that Patrick was requesting a local police escort while making cuts in local aid that are squeezing local-government services, including police.

 

But Patrick campaign press secretary Alex Goldstein on Friday said that the Patrick campaign did not request a local police escort.

 

Jim Giebfried, head of the Norfolk Democratic Town Committee, said in an interview he made the request on his own initiative, because Patrick has an event scheduled in Walpole after the event at Norfolk Public Library on Saturday.

 

The conflict — if that’s what it is — stems from an item in the Friday, April 30 issue of The Norfolk Boomerang, which reported a selectmen’s discussion of the police escort request.

 

During the Norfolk Board of Selectmen meeting Monday, April 26, Selectman Jim Tomaszewski told the other selectmen that Giebfried had asked him about having a local police escort for Patrick.

 

That conversation took place Saturday, April 24 near the town seal just southwest of the Main Street roundabout in Norfolk Center.

 

Tomaszewski had been out holding signs for another selectman, Jim Lehan, and for then-state representative Richard Ross, a Republican, who was running for state Senate (a seat he won this past Tuesday). Giebfried was not far away, holding a sign for Ross’s Democratic opponent, Peter Smulowitz.

 

In interviews late this week, both men said Giebfried crossed the street to talk to Tomaszewski about Patrick’s stop in Norfolk planned for Saturday, May 15.

 

Giebfried informed Tomaszewski that Patrick was coming to Norfolk Public Library (something Tomaszewski didn’t previously know) and asked him for a Norfolk police escort from the library to the town border with Walpole, because Patrick has another event scheduled in Walpole right after the event in Norfolk.

 

“I went and spoke with Mr. Tomaszewski. I approached him and asked if we could have a courtesy escort for the governor,” Giebfried said in an interview late this week. “… So it was not the governor’s office. It came from me. … It was a matter of courtesy and to assure the governor was escorted out of town in a quick manner.”

 

Tomaszewski told Giebfried he should make the request through the Norfolk town administrator’s office, which he later did, and from there the request was forwarded to Norfolk’s police chief.

 

Tomaszewski brought up Patrick’s planned appearance in Norfolk and the police escort during the Board of Selectmen meeting two days later.

 

The three selectmen — who are all Republicans — joked about the request, suggesting that police could take Patrick by one or two of Norfolk’s three prisons on the way to Walpole, to emphasize a local complaint about a loss of prison mitigation funds that the town has in the past used for capital projects.

 

Tomaszewski said in an interview late this week that he was under the impression the request for the police escort had originated with the Patrick campaign, though he said he didn’t think much about it at the time. He implied as much during the selectmen’s meeting April 26.

 

The Norfolk Boomerang ran a brief on the selectmen’s discussion in the issue dated Friday, April 30. The brief referred to the Norfolk police escort inquiry as “Patrick’s request,” picking up on Tomaszewski's description.

 

But Giebfried said that’s not so, and that the request originated with him.

 

Selectman Rob Garrity, chairman of the board, said in an interview late this week that he is not surprised to learn that the request for a police escort didn’t originate with the governor’s office or the governor’s campaign. Massachusetts governors are driven by a State Trooper and receive security protection from the State Police.

 

“As someone who worked for several governors, I thought it was kind of an odd request,” said Garrity, a Republican who worked under Republican governors for about 10 years. “But we were willing to honor it out of respect for the governor. It’s not every day you get a governor coming out to little old Norfolk. And as a matter of fact, this would be the first time in this administration — or the last dozen.”

 

So are Norfolk police going to escort the governor?

 

Yes, but only because the schedule works out for it, said Charles H. Stone Jr., the town’s police chief.

“I happen to have a motorcycle officer on Saturday, anyways,” Stone said in an interview Friday. “I wasn’t calling anyone in for a detail, given the serious budget consequences the town is facing.”

 

The proposed no-override budget going to Town Meeting next week calls for eliminating one police officer from the Norfolk Police Department. (An earlier version of the no-override budget called for cutting two police officers.) Selectmen are proposing a Proposition 2 1/2 override of a little less than $1 million that would increase local property taxes to retain certain local-government services, including keeping Norfolk’s police force at 17 full-time officers.

 

 

 

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