To the Editor:

My name is Jay Ryder and I served on the Marion Planning Board for six years. One year as vice chair and two years as the chairman. I also served as chairman of the Town House Advisory Committee. I know how important it is for a board or committee to work together.

I’ve watched and listened to the Planning Board deliberate since May when three new members were elected, and it has become quite evident that Eileen Marum, one of the newly elected members, has her own agenda.

Rather than listen and learn at her new post, like most first timers, she came out of the gates proposing a handbook for members of the Planning Board. There have been no handbooks for Selectmen or Planning Board members, ever. On numerous occasions, she has verbally abused Terri Santos, the Planning Board’s dedicated and extremely competent assistant.

She recently wrote a letter to the editor complaining that there were not enough residents on the Master Plan Subcommittee rather than openly discussing the issue with other members of her board.

The last straw was circumventing the Planning Board, once again, to propose a new bylaw. Instead, she submitted the draft to the Selectmen, who in turn referred it back to the Planning Board. She claimed she did not have confidence in the Planning Board to go directly to them in the first place. This is definitely someone who has her own agenda.

The Planning Board is a team of players. It has a master plan to contend with, a proposed development by CVS that requires their foremost attention and other matters that come before them on a semi-monthly basis. They don’t need a member who is constantly diverting their attention to her own agenda. Unless she is willing to join the team and put her efforts in the right direction, perhaps she should let a more civic-minded individual take her place on the Planning Board.

Jay Ryder,

former chairman

Marion Planning Board