From the Eagle Tribune;
July 4, 2011
Atkinson police chief recovering from surgery
By Cara Hogan
chogan@eagletribune.com
ATKINSON — Police Chief Philip Consentino came home from the hospital Thursday after heart surgery on June 14.
Consentino had surgery to repair a leaky valve in his heart. He has been on medical leave from the police department while in the hospital.
"This was very major surgery," he said. "It was an eight-hour surgery. They ripped me up and sewed me back together."
Consentino said he's still in pain and can't return to work yet, but he's happy to be home again.
"I called (the station) two to three times a day to make any major decisions and answer questions while I was in the hospital," he said. "I'm home now, running things from the house, sorting out different bills and doing paperwork. I can't get out and run 100 miles per hour yet, but my brain and arms are still working, so I can still do something."
The longtime chief he should be able to get back into the office in a few weeks.
"I have an appointment with the surgeon next Tuesday and, hopefully, I'll get a clean bill of health," he said. "I'd say a couple of weeks and then I'll be able to get back, whether it's just light duty work, sitting at a desk or whatever."
Until then, Detective Philip Farrar is in charge.
"He seems to be recovering quite well and I'm hoping he'll be back real soon," Farrar said of Consentino. "In the meantime, we're holding our own here."
Farrar took over as second in command after Lt. William Baldwin left the department for a job in Plaistow. The selectmen voted to bring in an independent company to review the staffing needs of the department and put off hiring Baldwin's replacement. Just a few weeks later, Farrar announced he would be retiring this summer, leaving the department understaffed.
But now, Farrar said, Consentino's surgery has changed his plans.
"I put the retirement plans on hold for now just because I don't know when he's coming back, and I'm not going to walk away and leave him stranded," he said. "We've got a good crew here and we're doing fine. Everyone pitches in."
Selectmen's Chairman William Bennett said everyone is relieved the surgery went well.
"We're very happy that the chief is recovering so well," Bennett said. "We're glad to have him back in town and we look forward to him getting back in the saddle. "
There have been no problems at the department in Consentino's absence.
"The chief left a capable man in charge," Bennett said. "Farrar will remain in charge until the chief is ready to return."
The Atkinson community has stepped up to help Consentino and his wife during his recovery.
"The outpouring of people sending me cards, and calling and offering help has been absolutely amazing," Consentino said. "So many people took the time to send me a get well card and I really appreciate their concern. It gives you a warm feeling knowing there are people who care about you."
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61 comments:
You'd better hurry up and retire before the benefits change. Hurry, hurry, don't be foolish...go...go...good riddance. Buh- bye.
Great to hear you're doing well!
Phil said "I called (the station) two to three times a day to make any major decisions and answer questions while I was in the hospital," he said. "I'm home now, running things from the house, sorting out different bills and doing paperwork."
No normal person would be calling into work after major heart surgery like he went through. What "major decisions" does he have to make every day? LOL. He wants to sound like he's been involved over his 16 day hospital stay. Spin spin spin. he wouldn't want it to look like the PD can function without him. And it just did. Without Phil or Baldwin in spite of incompetent Farrar. Phil we don't need you and you know it. And you only got cards from the people you give my tax money to via rides and favors. So I indirectly paid for all your cards ans postage. You're welcome.
16 day hospital stays indicate MAJOR problems. There is a zero chance of him returning to work. He'll shortly retire due to medical reasons.
JMHO
He said his arms and brain still work. That's an improvement over his pre-surgical condition when he could always manage a palm out to us.
BTW, anyone reading this will be chuckling at the spin, not to worry. To think he'd have us believe he's been working. Ya right.
This means Farrar has not been making any decisions. hahahahaha. Stick around so that you don't leave us ""stranded"".
There's so many fewer posts on
the blog in recent weeks cause Phil hasn't had access to a computer. With his brain and arms working that should change soon.
Hmmmm. A walker, pain killers, tube up the weeeeenie ::: but in command of the town again ::: barking orders ::: I'm impressed!
Hope you get well soon.
ARTICLE SUBMISSION
It's politically incorrect to say something negative about someone who is very ill and facing dire health consequences. Even if they are of the worst kind.
How do we handle situations like this? Someone who's caused so much pain and suffering to MANY others, while running an illegal vote buying scheme and using his badge to silence critics. So many examples of lawsuits and videos and threatening letters document the facts are clear: Phil Consentino has been the worst thing for Atkinson but great for his close circle of paid off supporters and obligated senior voters.
Here are some changes we will soon see:
1) Phil will have to retire from all town functions due to health reasons. I don't have to be a doctor to figure it out.
2) His little black book compiled over 40 years of obligated people he let off of petty crimes or a DWI, or their kids, all in exchange for their obligated silence, they will be freed at last from his hold over them.
3) Our PD can be completely overhauled to run like a normal PD with the politics removed from daily activity. Their ability to focus on only police work will show we can downsize the force to meet the actual needs of the town. Fewer part timees. If the budget isn't cut by half, go to regionalized policing.
4) The taxi service run by the PD comes to an end. Elderly Affairs will be completely overhauled. The list of users will become public information (Phil's secret voter list). Means testing will be required. Volunteers will be allowed to give rides to senior friends and neighbors at no cost to the town, a novel concept. Anyone with the time will run it out of the Community Center. The EA budget will stop being fiction and managed correctly. We'll sell off some of the excess, unnecessary vehicles we DON'T need along with the insurance, GAS, maintenance, etc.
5) Most importantly, people will be free to speak their minds at BOS meetings and deliberative sessions will become a democratic process once again which has been the direction since Jim Garrity did a fine job taking over. Deliberative will be held at the PAC. Sorry, the free food that entices seniors will no longer be offered at the PAC because they have strict rules about eating inside.
6) Residents will reconsider volunteering again. The CIC will come back.
7) Lawsuits will decline.
Question? Can the Police Charitable fund continue to operate in its name if there are no police officers running it?
We are approaching a new day in Atkinson. Free of tyranny and repression built over many years by one disturbed individual. It will take a long time to fix all he's broken. But change did begin recently, my good neighbor. I hope and pray that new theme will carry forward and we can heal the wounds and move forward in a civil manner to distance Atkinson from its laughingstock status (and that is a fact our town is a joke, you can ask anyone from anywhere else in NH).
We can never, ever again, allow a policeman to run EA or ever run anything political. It's like a separation of church and state. They have one job: enforce the law. Not be a taxi service. Not be a political group using tax dollars illegally. Just do daily police work and that's it.
It'll be hard to forgive and forget. It's easier to curse and hope some people get what they deserve. It'll be more productive to focus on moving ahead and making the changes we need to bury the past practices. The villains shall be ignored as they are now irrelevant. Don't waste time or energy engaging them any further. It's not worth a moment of your time. Spend your energy on rebuilding for the future.
A new day is coming my good neighbor. Will Atkinson be perfect? No but it's going to be a lot more civil and we'll fix the broken stuff. I believe it, I know it. Because I will not tolerate it ever again. I have my facts straight.
all just my humble opinion of course
I truly believe this is possible in our Town, but only when (not if, when) the Chief leaves.
I agree
Blew me away to read it. Now let's get it done.
I'm tired of this situation. I can't get services I pay for, it's not right.
It hasn't been right for a long time. The guy has cost the town millions in wasted dollars when you add it all up.
MRI. Please put in a qualified police chief right away.
Het bloggers I can't wait to see the report which will tell the town what we all know: One cop per shift? Are you kidding me?
A new day is indeed coming and the cops may be able to do their job, make dwi arrest, write tickets to the residents and of course rid the town of this negaive rag. :)
Be very careful what you wish for bloggers! I'm back
Threats, intimidation, more lawsuits on the way.
7/6 @ 932 must be the chief because he said he is back. Why write anonymous when it is you? Obviously you have no guts to say your the chief when blogging to defend yourself but are able to as anonymous.
BOS gets MRI to fix APD ASAP or S.H.I.T. hits fan ASAP.
Unqualified part time chief.
Every town needs one. Along with part time, unqualified selectmen cowards to cover up.
Anarchy in Atkinson
Long live the blog!
I give credit to the Blog as one of the tools exposing all the BS going on in town. The Atkinson Taxpayer website has documentation showing the facts and lawsuits. Technology took down the king.
How are we going to replace him? The voters approved a PT Chief so we cannot go out and hire a FT Chief without a new vote, though it's what we need.
All the guff about the Chief....let's not forget the 3 Stooges on every Monday night at 7:30 on the local channel. Moe, Larry and Curly.
Curly needs everything e-mailed,and loses it when it becomes meeting time.Moe is concerned about "common courtesy and doing everything under "the darkness of night" (Layover projectin Plaistow), but he needs to practice what he preaches.
And then there is Larry, well we all know Larry is the silent type and yes man.
I thought Curly and the Chief were friends, why all the Curly bashing all of a sudden?
Hey, one at a time. The entire house of cards is linked to Phil. He got the stooges elected. Once Phil loses the badge, it is GAME OVER. I'm betting if the badge goes for medical reasons, then he won't be allowed to run Elderly Affairs either.
He should not be running any Dept anymore.
Atkinson town government and employees ignore and manipulate the laws to their liking. Ethically bankrupt. Legally at risk.
Citizens violated and angry.
My guess is that if Chief was out, Bennett, Childs, Sapia, Polito, Jody, the other woman, the APCF, Consentino Jr., Dick Smith, Jones, Sue Killam, and many PT cops, would disappear from town positions for good.
Ashland: Land Of Rosie
By CNHT | June 28, 2011
by Ed Naile
It had to happen.
Our old pal Rosie McNamara, former tax collector of Ashland, until she was caught “misappropriating” about $2 million dollars and went to jail, was arrested again.
Earlier this month Rosie decided to stop paying a court ordered $25.00 per week to the town and was re-arrested.
What a putz!
When you get a sweetheart deal like Rosie did you should at least pony up the court payments and stay out of trouble until you can get another backward town to hire or elect you.
Here is a list of the goodies that fell Rosie’s way after the $2 million dollars in tax money went missing in Ashland – beside very little press coverage at the time.
Rosie hoofed it with a sizable chunk of change and pleaded guilty to stealing only about $110,000.00.
She was represented back in 2000 by Paul Hodes, an attorney with Shaheen and Gordon. Not bad for an indigent who can only pay the Town $25 per week in restitution. It looks like she spends that amount daily on Ben and Jerry’s Chunky Monkey.
The NH Parole Board left her off with a slap on the wrist sentence in light of $2 million missing. I was at the hearing and it appeared to me the Ashland Selectmen were promised a longer sentence than two years.
The NH Parole Board consisted of three members back then – all appointments of Gov. Jeanne Shaheen – wife of a prominent member of the Shaheen/Gordon Law Firm.
The prosecutor was AG Phil McLaughlin – appointed by Gov. Shaheen.
Had anyone involved recused themselves Rosie might have had to suffer the indignities of a court-appointed lawyer, not a prominent lawyer, soon to be congressman.
The statements given to the Attorney general by the parties in Ashland who oversaw Rosie’s employment and worked with her, some of which described her in glowing terms, seem to have been taken at the Local Government Center in Concord – the insurance provider for Ashland which paid Ashland about $600,000.00.
It looks like everyone involved put an extra amount of elbow grease into poor Rosie’s plight by looking the other way when conflicts of interest appeared.
And now she dumps on them by reneging on a $25 dollar a week payment.
Paul Hodes has some time on his hands now that he is out of office. Maybe he will step up to the plate again for this sad little municipal monster.
Atkinson has Rosies. Stealing of town services. Hidden donations. Payoffs to expensive lawyers to cover up. Little or no newspaper coverage from the Eagle Tribune. Voters ignorant of the facts.
Thanks to you honorable blog administrators. This blog "rag" exposes "Atkinson's Rosies" for what they are....as well as their protectors and the expensive thug lawyers hired to "get them off". The" sunshine" from the blog hurts them bad. So "the town" spends tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars desperately trying to find out who is exposing them. In desperation "our Rosies" accuse everyone of being a blog administrator. Too stupid to realize what an honor it is to be called a "blog administrator"!
Freedom of speech and opinion. Freedom of the press. And if we are lucky, some real justice. Not a slap on the wrist. Real justice for breaking the laws.
My humble opinion.
"A new day is indeed coming and the cops may be able to do their job, make dwi arrest, write tickets to the residents and of course rid the town of this negaive rag. :)
Be very careful what you wish for bloggers! I'm back"
This post is disturbing.
This has to be from one of the police officers. I have to ask you this - are you ignoring people driving drunk, as your post implies? If so, why you aren't arresting people who you see driving drunk? I don't know what possible good reason you could have to not do what is expected of you, every day.
IS this just part of your plan to just let them drive away and hit a wall before you arrest them by "accident"?
My suspicion is that when MRI shows up, they will make recommendations to JUSTIFY keeping the Police Chief. I hate to be going to the negative, but this is what I suspect is the real intent of the Board, especially by Bill Benett. Remember, Bill was paraded around as Phil's favorite candidate for Selectman.
I don't know that MRI would ruin their own reputation by recommending anything so blatantly ridiculous, but I suspect this is a smoke screen put up by Bill for some other purpose.
Maybe MRI will recommend making all the cops part-timers. After all, we have no crime in town and we don't need all these employees.
If I were a cop, I'd want to have the best equipment, wages, hours and other qualified cops around me at all times. I would want the public to know what I was doing and how much I was accomplishing.
Why on earth don't we see the police logs and why is everything a secret? Why hide anything if things are going well and if you are proud of what you are doing?
Excellent points. The saddest part is your questions have been asked for years and never get answered or addressed. Its only gotten worse. Its nuts. Bizarre. Secrecy with no accountability and if you ask questions YOU get attacked because "you must have a vendetta".
it has gotten worse. What are they thinking, not dealing with the issues?
The funny thing of it is, I just visited the Town website and couldnt find any minutes from any meetings. Aren't minutes like daily logs???
How about those selectmen last night? they were able to fly thru the approval of the minutes as far back as April. hnak goodness mr Bennett took the night off. Anyone know who's running against the speedy cadi driver in March?
The following are excerpts from the Andover Police log. The log is open to the public.
Saturday, July 9
At 3:10 a.m. police assisted North Andover with a missing person report on Andover Street. The individual was found and returned home.
At 9:58 a.m. a snake problem was reported on Oriole Drive. The animal control officer was able to remove the snake.
At 10:17 a.m. a car accident was reported on Route 125 near Salem Street. No injuries were reported.
At 12:11 p.m. a caller reported a rat climbed out of her pool on Lowell Street. The animal control officer responded and said that it was a baby woodchuck, which took off into the woods.
At 12:37 p.m. a resident on Juliette Street reported a robin was stuck in a chain link fence. The bird was transported to the Andover Animal Hospital.
At 4:33 p.m. a caller reported that her purse was stolen from her car while it was parked at the Harold Parker Forest Field Pond lot.
Sunday, July 10
At 3:55 a.m. police arrested Maruis Allen Bergendahl, 19, of 255 Western Ave., Lynn, on North Main Street. Bergendahl was charged with operating under the influence of liquor.
At 5:13 a.m. a caller reported a possible hit and run crash on High Street.
At 9:45 a.m. a caller reported finding a used syringe on his front lawn on Oak Street. Police responded and disposed of the needle.
At 4:20 p.m. a car accident was reported on Lowell Street. No injuries were reported.
At 8:16 a.m. a caller reports about 10 kids on skateboards in the middle of North Main Street. This report was one of many like it in the past several weeks.
This is what should be reported. Everyone knows what's going on and how things were handled.
Why is this not happening here? (stupid question)
The CONMAN can't proect his friends if he does a police log.
Again, he is the most corrupt person in our town.GET IT!
He has to be fired!
MO
GET IT? Leon's back.
Thanks Phil I see you are too.
Atkinson, the Quartzsite of New Hampshire
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=321717
Anonymous 12:54
You so funny. Where
you find this stuff?
I don't think it was very funny, it's outrageous and we have the same problem! One would think these new articles and videos came from Atkinson, NH.
I think we should write to them and point them to our blog and send them the email addresses of our town officials so they can write to them.
Yo, July 14, 2011 3:06 PM
Where yo been?
They arent posted because every time he posts them he gets questions because Atkinson only averages 7-9 dispatches per week.
Kind of hard to justify $750,000/yr. when your cops are only dispatched once a day.
The budget is really closer to $1Million when you factor in the insurance paid on another line by the town that used to be on the PD budget (a little budgetary shell game there) and you actually consider the true cost of giving seniors almost 2000 rides to anywhere each year. I'd also add in there legal costs we are hit with liability insurance cost increases due to lawsuits generated by our town's biggest lawbreaker, and the substantial increase in town counsel-legal costs we've seen in recent years for the same reasons. We saw savings only through losing some officers yet somehow the PD managed to run without them. And now continues to run without them.
The real cost of our PD is probably twice what we should be spending. Without seeing the books I'd bet its an extra $400,000-$500,000 minimum per year.
Get a real chief who does not break the law generating lawsuits and running a political group in the PD. Get rid of all the extra unnecessary part timers and extra police cars. I'd make the Elderly Affaris a volunteer organization with no pay for drivers and disclose to taxpayers all the user of the free rides and apply means testing. Have and follow a real budget for Elderly affairs which relies on PD support smoke and mirrors.
All are very achievable. But we cant afford $6,000 for Hazmat. What a joke.
BOS gets MRI to fix APD ASAP or S.H.I.T. hits fan ASAP.
Dont forget about when the town sent Billy to Quantico for Sniper school on the town's dime.
GOOD THING WE DID THAT. MANY LIVES MUST HAVE BEEN SAVED. I CAN'T THINK OF MORE STUPIDITY IN ONE PLACE THANT OUR TOWN LEADERSHIP.
It just never ends, the crazy way my tax dollars are wasted by Atkinson for undeserved and ridiculous perks. Did the town REALLY need a sniper.... sleepy little Atkinson...hmmmm. How many sniper rifles did the town buy? You can't have an expert sniper but no sniper riffles... Obviously, definitely, no question, darntootin.
Was it the sniper rifle that was lost in the snow?
Hey B.O.S. have you stopped by Hilltop Cattle farm with warm wishes for the chief? Did you bring him something nice? Maybe a fruitbasket, a box of chocolates or maybe something better like a letter,,,,please tell us? Inquiring minds want to know.
gimmeee, gimmmeeeeee
the BOS is very corrupt, its run similar to the way this blog is run, bunch of old school tattle tales, trying to sink the ship??? not gonna happen. The bos will be under the microscope real soon with some of the stuff they have been pulling, no need to name names
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