Maxinista: Shock, Awe and Generational Cronyism

by Sniper

How about this for a laugh? Dougie Doman is out! He didn't get enough votes to validate his creepy tenure as arbiter of bad taste for Maxinista and Stewie! His shell game caught up with him! Too protective of his Institute for Human Development in Wyndmoor. Afraid somebody at the Local might actually launch an investigative piece about his business . . . now he'll have to hightail it to Italy, beyond the reach of the paper, where he has another Institute, retailing pricey hope to the physically bereft, too . . . Or turn the whole shooting gallery over to his sister, whom his father placed above him in the Doman hierarchy . . . Because here's the catch: now that the Maxinista/Actionista-dominated Executive Committee has lost its stranglehold on the Local's windpipe, the paper can resume its natural role as free interpreter of CH happenings . . . no more nonsense! Name names! Write editorials! Chase the Publisher's Committee back into the caverns of Maxine's imagination , from which it sprang (with help from the strange Stewie, the unreadable Parry) . . . Maxinistas and their proteges, the Actionistas, forgot that a truly free press can't hurt you. Because it literally is the community.

The vote was devastating. Twenty-four board seats up, 19 for SOC, five for the AA. And this despite the Graham/Doman/Dornemann/Hausermann rollout drive, where free CHCA memberships were allegedly offered to mitered oldsters from venues like Cathedral Village, in exchange for filled-in ballots. The counterpunch was, reportedly, SOC's Ron Recko and 9th ward Democrat leader John O'Connell, who went out and brought new CHCA members into the fray, who weren't easily influenced by the generational cronyism of the old Chestnut Hill power-ocracy -- the one that reaches across all "party" and "slate" lines, and includes former members of the Lloyd Wells Originals; proto-classists like Carolyn "Puffy" Hausermann and her lawnboy, Superbrat Snowden; "reformers" once unafraid to name names and fight earlier Orwellian outbreaks, like Maurice McCarthy & Tolis Vardakis's "Civil Code," the forerunner in 2000 of the whole mess that coalesced under Maxine's regime . . . but who are now withering on the vine with premature gravitas."

Poor Betty Brady. Straining her face to keep it from cracking Monday at 5:45 p.m. when the vote tallies burst suddenly over the Local like rough ocean waves from Wildwood (not Cape May!), proclaiming the end of a three-year downturn. People were stunned:
"You mean Joe Pie and Jane Piotrowski won't be sneaking around here, spying anymore?" one formerly tight-lipped employee gasped. "Do you think Kari and Betty are done, too? How about Ellen [Manning]? Do ya think she'll give up now on her plans to get rid of Cheryl [Massaro], Ellen [Maher] and Mary [Flannery]?" "Give up?" a visitor laughed happily. "She may be gone herself! If they had a real Community Manager, they wouldn't need a 'Community Development Manager' would they?"

Already the calls are rolling in: Walter "Foghorn" Sullivan, formerly chary of getting too close to SOC-hoppers (Maxinista/Actionistas used to watch their backs like East German Stasi undercovers), rang up a SOC ringleader to say he wanted to "open the door" for negotiations in the "wake of all the unpleasantness"; Jeremy Heep, the youthful (okay, Tia?) lawyer and AA presidential hopeful, just weeks ago stand-offish with those he was about to conquer, began initiating calls for meetings to decide what would likely happen on the many nominating questions now thrown into disarray -- the rulers of the next 12 months were supposedly already listed for combat duty, according to one highly placed source. Because Max, as prior president, sits on the Executive Committee and heads the Nominating Committee!

Overheard at Sanjiv Jain's Chestnut Hill Coffeehouse, an unofficial meeting place for Maxinistas prior to the Great Fall, were disloyal speculations on the boss's contributions to the AA defeat: "That goddamned $3200 [fee for renting the first floor of 8431 Germantown Avenue, promised to Sanji by Max's pals in the CHCA -- though it's illegal because Jain was supposed to be "volunteering" as "community property manager" at the time], probably hurt [the AA] when the frigging blog printed it," groused a sore loser. "Yeah, and the fact that he let the AA use his old store on the top of the Hill for a headquarters, with all their wholesome photos of them and their dogs in the windows, probably didn't play too well, either . . . When you cut yourself loose from someone [Jain's and Maxine's persuasions by Stewie Graham and Richie Maloumian to not seek election this year], you've got to cut yourself off!"

The major turnout of 1700 voters made the difference -- in the last apathetic years, elections were won with tiny pluralities, 450 votes total, as if Chestnut Hill Community Association officers were being inducted into a tennis association, or a tea sodality. This year, winners polled in the 800s, and losers in the low 600s, with SOC getting the majority of crossover votes -- those who "crossed" slates. Ned Mitinger, a former Community Manager, led the vote-getting with 825 votes, with smoothie Stewie Graham right behind him at 806, and Marie Lachat next with 775. But the mold has been cast. Big voter anger out there.

For Chestnut Hill to really renew itself though, both in its government and newspaper, it's got to broaden participation. Get rid not only of the Maxine Dornemanns, Doug Domans, Sanjiv Jains, Stewie Grahams, Pam Waters's and Brian Tilleys, but attack the generational cronyism that has allowed the Lloyd Wells Originals to fuse with their purported enemies -- Doman and Graham.

An example: As I write this, I've just learned that Mary Anna Ross, a kind of drum major emeritus, has been conducting semi-secret meetings to arrange Janine Dwyer's nomination for CHCA president. Janine didn't run this year, but as a board member, former president and Honorary Sister in the Hair Salon Granny Caucus, she's temperamentally disposed to please all parties at all times, as Mark Keintz was -- to his great loss in this election. What's bad is the behind-the-scenes angling of Ross and her cohorts, who simply seem to want to retain control by age fiat . . . Why shouldn't Recko, Jim Foster and others who worked so hard to win the election have a say in who gets to pick the SOC prez? It's the Aiello way, the Wells way . . . Don't forget. Ross was a major opponent of the SOC campaign ad that "dared" to name Doug Doman , Stewart Graham and Richard Becker as major players in AA double-dealing a couple of weeks ago, a silly fear "issue" which could have split the party at the polls and hurt SOC far more than the mild ad copy did.

Meanwhile, the blog creep who calls himself/herself "Henry D" is threatening to make a public issue of the sensational charges made in CH Notebook against Marie Lachat's financial agreement with the CHCA to terminate her job as Community Manager a little over a year ago . . . talk about sore losers.

Where is the Granny Caucus on this crucial matter?