Lindeners ‘teeth on edge’

THE ANCIENT HEBREWS IDIOMATIC EXPRESSION THAT ‘PARENTS EAT SOUR
GRAPES AND THE CHILDREN’S TEETH ARE ON EDGE’ is resurrected and haunting
municipal workers and the citizens of Linden.
In this saying, the children of Abraham wrongly attributed blamed to past generations for their
current troubles. By it, they sought refuge in a failed bid to dodge individual or collective
responsibilities for hardships they were experiencing.
The fatalism of those Israelites nevertheless highlights an enduring truth – there are
generational consequences of our present behaviours.
The ongoing feud between Linden Mayor, Ms. Waneka Arrindell and its Town Clerk, Ms.
Orleena Obermuller, and its direct consequences municipal staff and citizens of the bauxite-
mining community are forced to endure, give life to the corpse of that idiom of yesteryear.
“You have a situation where the Town Clerk and the Mayor cannot get along. Several employees
are forced to suffer because of what I think are their petty behaviour,” a municipal employee told
www.aroundtheregions.com.
Last month municipal workers suffered late payment of salaries. They linked the delay on the
continuing tiff between the two leading Linden ladies. Several sources pointed to Mayor
Arrindell’s refusal to sign relevant documents as the hiccup.
Numerous employees were disappointed, but not surprised by the Mayor’s “vindictive and
spiteful approach” because of the squabble, explaining it is part of her usual weaponry to
demonise Obermuller and project her to be an object for public ridicule.

Knowledgeable employees said Mayor Arrindell, backed by some Councillors devoted to her
agenda of revenge, has been on an aggressive campaign to tarnish Obermuller’s personal and
professional reputations with a mixture of innuendos and outright falsehoods.
Employees have long reached breaking point with the persistent bickering between Arrindell and
Obermuller. They agreed that while the latter “has her own challenges…in running the
administrative arm of the Council” she nevertheless does a fair and professional job serving the
community and always giving her best despite their fuss.
However, “the Mayor and several of her Councillors continue to seek to lay the blame for every
problem of the Council at the feet of the Town Clerk, when in actuality the TC is not responsible
for several of the problems. This is their deliberate attempt at trying to make the TC look bad,”
one municipal worker explained.
Others exposed what they described as the Mayor’s use of spite and other “high-handed tactics”
as a management tool to bully her way inro extracting obedience. But in her quest, she has
sullied the working environment making it toxic, workers agreed.
“I don’t know why the Mayor would refuse to sign as she knows very well that it’s not the Town
Clerk alone who would be affected, but rather every single employee within the Council. The
rapid deterioration of the relationship between the Mayor and Town Clerk needs to be addressed
immediately,” a female employee related.
In Obermuller’s assessment, Arrindell and her cabal “use the payment of staff as a ransom to get
what they want. But once I know I’m in my right based on the law, I just do what I have to do.”
There is no end in sight for the continued spat among Mayor Arrindell, her Deputy, Mr.
Wainewright Bethume, Town Clerk, Obermuller, and some Councillors loyal to the head of the
Linden Municipality.
But Obermuller assured she will not crack and compromise her integrity just to get along.
And she hopes the 40,000 Region Ten citizens will still be in her corner.

“There are times that when I seek to do what’s right according to the Law, creates
loggerheads,” and Town Clerk Obermuller can live with this.