XXXIV April 10, 2021

WHEN IS ENOUGH ENOUGH FOR THE GARDNER CITY SOLICITOR?

Go to YouTube, and watch the March 30, 2021 City of Gardner Finance Committee Meeting.

It’s entertaining, and it’s disturbing.

Several weeks ago, John M. Flick, Esq., the City of Gardner City Solicitor, approached the Mayor and attempted to get more business for Flick Law Group, P.C. – which is a private business Flick owns.

That would result in Flick, being the owner and principal of Flick Law Group, P.C., getting more income from the Gardner Citizens over and above the fortune he gets from the Citizens for being City Solicitor.

Here is what he, and his Flick Law Group, P.C. associate attorney (who is paid by the Citizens to be Asst. City Solicitor) get paid by the Citizens to do:

“The duties of the City Solicitor and Assistant City Solicitor . . . they shall approve contracts . . . prosecute or defend all cases and proceedings to which the City is a party . . . prepare or approve all deeds or other legal instruments relating to the City . . . and generally handle all legal affairs pertaining to the City.”

“All.”

For that, they get a combined $130,000 per year, plus entitlement to city health and life insurance, and city retirement.  

The ones paying for all that, the Citizens, are working minimum wage jobs (if and when the COVID Shut-Down ends, that is), and might get Social Security when they retire. 

It gets better.  The City Solicitor and Asst. City Solicitor jobs are part-time jobs.

It’s even better than that for the City Solicitor.  Both he and the Gardner Assistant City Solicitor work for Flick Law Group, P.C. during regular work hours – which is why their City jobs are considered part-time (in fact, based on that fact Flick is asking the City Council for an ethics exemption).

Prior City Solicitors have been perfectly satisfied with this same base level income/benefits/work schedule arrangement provided to them by the Gardner Citizens for what are part-time jobs.

But, for John M. Flick, Esq. the base level is not good enough, and never has been.

In fact, Flick’s complaining about it got him about six new line items, and an additional $11,000 or so in yearly appropriations, in his Law Dept. budget that no prior City Solicitor ever had – most (or nearly all of it) ending up at Flick Law Group, P.C. for its invoices to the City for things related to City of Gardner matters/transactions.

For example, Flick now gets $5,000 for “Research” that no other City Solicitor ever got (it’s a ridiculous expense for the Citizens to pay).  Flick gets $2,000 for “Closing Costs” that no other City Solicitor ever got – another ridiculous expense for the Citizens.  Flick gets $1,500 for “Professional Travel,” same thing.  He gets $2,000 for “Outside Counsel,” same thing.  Etc., Etc.

That’s all still not enough for John M. Flick, Esq., City Solicitor.

Up until Flick became City Solicitor, City Solicitors did not charge the Citizens for private work on City real estate transactions and matters involving the City of Gardner as an interested party. It’s just unheard of.

But, since Flick has been City Solicitor, Flick Law Group, P.C., a private business, has obtained income from the Gardner Citizens for real estate legal services, for real estate closings, and/or for title insurance commissions (and maybe for more things) – on real estate transactions involving the City of Gardner.

This has all been o.k. with the Executive Dept.

Again, all of this is over and above the $130,000 that Flick and his private lawyer employee at Flick Law Group, P.C. get paid every year by the Citizens for being the part-time Solicitor and Asst. Solicitor.

A good deal for them?  It’s still not enough for Flick.

Flick still complains about having to give free services to the Gardner Citizens.  

Flick has continuously complained about how Flick Law Group, P.C. (i.e., Flick) must continuously give free services to the Gardner Citizens.  Yes, you read that correctly.

Flick himself describes it this way sometimes: that he “provides support services to the City of Gardner without cost to the City” just as he has always done “and continues to do on a daily basis.”

Get this, that quote came from Flick during the height of the COVID Economic Shut-Down!

Let’s look at that for a second.  

This is when my son was getting minimum wage for the luxury of having humans breathing on him during the height of the Pandemic when he was stocking shelves at Wal-Mart, and when my other son was getting the same luxury as a waiter at Olive Garden.

This is when all our first responders, nurses, doctors, Gardner Prison officers/personnel and health care professionals were getting breathed on, coughed on, and sneezed on during COVID.

That is when thousands and thousands of Gardner Taxpayers were, and are still, out of work with zero income, during countless months of the Pandemic.

This is when those same struggling Citizens have been paying John M. Flick, Esq. and his Flick Law Group, P.C. associate lawyer (the Asst. City Solicitor) their combined $130,000 City of Gardner Taxpayer-funded paychecks for every minute of every day of every month of the Pandemic – and still.

Would any of you be complaining?  

Yet, here is Flick rubbing the Citizens’ nose in his arrogant, self-aware-less conceit that he is not being compensated by the Citizens for his services.

Like what?  Ask him what he’s not being compensated for, ask prior City Solicitors what they think about it.

But, Flick still wants more.

Now he wants this new, inside arrangement contract for his private business – and the Mayor thinks it’s another swell thing for the Citizens of Gardner to pay Flick for.

When is enough enough?

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